[Eugene Volokh, 9:27 AM]
MORE ON THE NEW YORK TIMES OP-ED AND ROMAN HISTORY: Iain Murray reflects further on one of the errors. Again, this alone is hardly a big deal -- but the sheer number of different errors in that op-ed (which was written by a professional historian) reflects badly both on the op-ed itself and on the Times.

 
[Eugene Volokh, 6:12 AM]
THE PULP FICTION GUN SAFETY CHALLENGE: A while back I noticed that Pulp Fiction would make a great gun safety training film. After all, the scene in the car, which causes our anti-heroes so much trouble, helps illustrate two of the three basic rules of gun safety:

     1. Keep your finger off the trigger until you're ready to shoot.

     2. Never point your gun in an unsafe direction (among other things, never use your gun as a pointer or wave it around).

     This does omit the third rule, treat every gun as if it were loaded (the Travolta character surely knew that the gun was loaded), but another scene, where Travolta gets his comeuppance, illustrates a different safety rule:

     3. Don't leave your gun where unauthorized people are likely to come across it.

     And, of course, the "miracle" scene illustrates a point that is indirectly a gun safety point, since after all the use of the gun there proved quite unsafe to the would-be defensive user:

     4. Learn how to use your gun effectively.

     So here's the challenge: I think it would be pretty amusing to excerpt the relevant scenes, introduce some voice-over and some text describing the rules (or at least the text, probably in separate frames that precede each scene), and post it on the Web as the Pulp Fiction Gun Safety Video. If it's done completely noncommercially, I think there's a good claim for this being a fair use under copyright law. I tried to do this once using a videotape version, but the video quality wasn't as good as it should be; but I think that if you work off a DVD, the results should be much better. (UPDATE: Several correspondents mentioned to me that DVDs are generally encrypted, something that I hadn't thought about, and on which I have no knowledge; I'm certainly not encouraging anyone to violate the DMCA, which may, depending on the circumstances [and I don't have the time to go into detail on that] prevent unauthorized decryption; so this might mean you may need to work off a videocasette after all.) Any takers?

 
[Eugene Volokh, 5:06 AM]
LITMUS TESTS: Last week, Senator (and Presidential candidate) John Kerry said that he'd only appoint Supreme Court Justices who support abortion rights, and said that "That is not a litmus test" (I'm quoting the Boston Globe, Apr. 9, 2003). He went on:

Litmus tests are politically motivated tests; this is a constitutional right. I think people who go to the Supreme Court ought to interpret the Constitution as it is interpreted, and if they have another point of view, then they're not supporting the Constitution, which is what a judge does.

This, it seems to me, makes virtually no sense, and Jeff Jacoby explains why it doesn't. Jacoby is right on this, and Kerry is wrong, regardless of what one thinks of abortion rights.

 
[Eugene Volokh, 4:39 PM]
A COOL ASHLEIGH BRILLIANT QUOTE: "I don't have any solution, but I certainly admire the problem." I've always liked that one.

 
[Eugene Volokh, 4:01 PM]
ABU ABBAS AMNESTY? Various readers pointed out one reason that Abu Abbas might have thought he was safe: According to CNN,

Palestinian Cabinet member Saeb Erakat said Wednesday that the United States violated the Oslo peace accords when it apprehended Abbas. Erakat pointed to the Oslo accords, signed by Israel and the PLO and witnessed by the United States, Russia, Jordan, Egypt, Norway and the European Union, of which Italy is a member. That agreement specified that no member of the Palestine Liberation Organization will be arrested or brought to court for any action that happened before September 13, 1993, the day the first Oslo accord was signed, Erakat said.

But actually the text of the accords says (huge but I think irrelevant chunks omitted):

The Government of the State of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (hereinafter "the PLO"), the representative of the Palestinian people; . . .

HEREBY AGREE as follows: . . .

ARTICLE XVI
Confidence Building Measures

With a view to fostering a positive and supportive public atmosphere to accompany the implementation of this Agreement, to establish a solid basis of mutual trust and good faith, and in order to facilitate the anticipated cooperation and new relations between the two peoples, both Parties agree to carry out confidence building measures as detailed herewith:

1. Israel will release or turn over to the Palestinian side, Palestinian detainees and prisoners, residents of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The first stage of release of these prisoners and detainees will take place on the signing of this Agreement and the second stage will take place prior to the date of the elections. There will be a third stage of release of detainees and prisoners. Detainees and prisoners will be released from among categories detailed in Annex VII (Release of Palestinian Prisoners and Detainees). Those released will be free to return to their homes in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

2. Palestinians who have maintained contact with the Israeli authorities will not be subjected to acts of harassment, violence, retribution or prosecution. Appropriate ongoing measures will be taken, in coordination with Israel, in order to ensure their protection

3. Palestinians from abroad whose entry into the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is approved pursuant to this Agreement, and to whom the provisions of this Article are applicable, will not be prosecuted for offenses committed prior to September 13, 1993. . . .

ARTICLE XXXI
Final Clauses

. . .

4. The two sides shall pass all necessary legislation to implement this Agreement.

. . .

8. The two Parties view the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as a single territorial unit, the integrity and status of which will be preserved during the interim period.

. . .

Done at Washington DC, this 28th day of September, 1995.

________________________
For the Government of
the State of Israel
________________________
For the PLO

Witnessed by:

________________________
The United States of America
________________________
The Russian Federation
________________________
The Arab Republic of Egypt
________________________
The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
________________________
The Kingdom of Norway
________________________
The European Union

A few thoughts:

1. One question is whether Abu Abbas qualifies as someone "whose entry into the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is approved pursuant to this Agreement" -- I have heard it said that he entered Gaza in the mid-1990s, but I'm not sure whether his entry was "approved pursusant to this Agreement." This, though, ties into the next question.



2. Is Abbas someone to "whom the provisions of this Article are applicable"? The "Article" is Article XVI, which is to say the three numbered items I cite above. But unless I'm mistaken, Abbas isn't one of the people whom Israel released (paragraph 1), nor is he someone who "[has] maintained contact with the Israeli authorities" (paragraph 2). If that's so, then the Article isn't applicable to him, and he gets no amnesty.



3. Finally, the agreement is by its explicit terms an agreement between Israel and the PLO, "the two sides," "the two Parties." Thus, it doesn't bind any other parties, whether or not they are witnesses; "will not be prosecuted" has to be understood as referring only to prosecution by Israel (and maybe by the Palestinian Authority). So it's just not possible for the United States or Italy to violate these accords -- the accords impose obligations only on "the two Parties," not on any other country.

     I am not an expert on the subject, so I might have missed something important -- but this is what things look like to me right now.

 
[Eugene Volokh, 2:44 PM]
COMPUTER-AIDED MOWING:
The Snopes Verdict: This appears to be true. (Thanks to fellow lawprof Myron Moskowitz for the pointer.)

 
[Eugene Volokh, 2:11 PM]
CHIEF MOOSE AND THE WASHINGTON SNIPER BOOK: The Montgomery County Ethics Commission advisory opinion that says Chief Moose may not get money for writing a book about the Washington sniper shootings, and for consulting on a movie about the subject, is here. My First Amendment analysis: Close call -- the test for when the government may restrict speech of its employees is notoriously mushy, and there are no precedents that squarely dispose of this case. (It is, however, clear, that the County can't get out of the First Amendment issue simply by saying that Moose is free to speak, just not for money: The Supreme Court has specifically held that the freedom of speech includes the freedom to speak in exchange for money.)

 
[Eugene Volokh, 12:05 PM]
LANGUAGE POLICE, BIGOTRY ACCUSATIONS DIVISION: Bill Adams persuasively debunks the New York Observer's allegation that the National Review's use of "shyster" is somehow inherently anti-Semitic.

 
[Eugene Volokh, 11:03 AM]
AN ANALOGY THAT I HADN'T THOUGHT OF: But then again it is from a reader who calls herself Little Miss Attila:

A Hitachi Magic Wand [EV: I assume this is a vibrator] is essentially the sexual equivalent of a Ruger .357: it equalizes the sexes, allowing a woman to do something -- with technological assistance -- that comes more easily to a man.

That does shed an interesting light on the subject.

 
[Eugene Volokh, 10:54 AM]
PRIVATE BOYCOTTS/FIRINGS AND "THE FIRST AMENDMENT": Over the last several weeks, many people have pointed out -- quite correctly -- that private boycotts and firings don't violate the First Amendment. The First Amendment only binds the government; originally, it bound just the federal government, but the Fourteenth Amendment has been interpreted as applying the First to states and local governments as well. Private universities, private employers, private landlords, private householders, private Internet Service Providers, and so on aren't bound by the First Amendment. (This is the so-called "state action doctrine," a term that covers federal as well as state and local action.) Some federal and state laws do partly constrain private parties' ability to retaliate economically against people based on their speech, but the First Amendment doesn't, and those federal and state laws in the aggregate provide much narrower protection than the First Amendment does.

     What's more, some forms of speech that help accomplish this economic retaliation, such as calls for boycotts of offensive speakers, or for boycotts of companies that employ such speakers, are themselves protected by the First Amendment. If you try to organize a boycott of the Dixie Chicks, or of their record label, (1) you aren't violating their First Amendment rights, and (2) you are actually exercising your own First Amendment rights.

     This, though, disposes only of the constitutional question -- whether such private retaliation actually violates the First Amendment. But many people who are making the First Amendment argument, I think, are actually making (or at least are also making) an ethical and pragmatic claim: That this sort of private speech-restrictive conduct is unethical, because it wrongly punishes people for speaking their minds, or harmful to society, because it deters people from saying things that might be valuable to public debate. This argument cannot, I think, be disposed of simply by referring to the state action doctrine. It's proper to say that "private boycotts violate the First Amendment" is technically false, and it's proper to point out that private action is not legally or morally identical to government action. Still, that doesn't respond to the deeper underlying ethical and pragmatic argument.

     A classic situation where many people see the ethical and pragmatic argument arises when private universities impose speech codes. These speech codes don't violate the First Amendment (though in California they do violate a state statute, called the Leonard Law); but many people properly complain that they violate academic freedom principles. These principles, which are often understood as applying something like the First Amendment to the relationship between private universities (at least those that claim to espouse such principles) and private university students, are ethical and pragmatic principles: They rest on the theory that it's wrong for universities to be intolerant of certain views, and that the universities function better if bad speech is answered with counterspeech, rather than with suppression. It's wrong to criticize these speech codes on the grounds that they violate the First Amendment, because they don't. But simply saying "no state action!" in response to such criticisms doesn't really reach the heart of the objection.

     Another classic situation arises in our everyday lives, and our judgments of the actions of others. If we hear that a friend refuses to have dinner with people who are Nazis or Communists, we'd probably think he's acting properly; we might think the same if he refuses to do business with them, or perhaps even if he refuses to hire them (though I suspect that some people may have a different view as to the latter). If we hear that he refuses to have dinner with people who are Republicans, or who were for the war -- or a different friend refuses to have dinner with Democrats or anti-war people -- we'd probably think he's intolerant, and we'd think that even more if he refused to do business with such people or hire them. We might conclude that he has the legal right to act this way, but we'd think that this isn't how open-minded, decent people should generally act. And we'd shudder at the thought of a society where more people acted this way, partly because life in this society would be too combative, partly because people in this society would largely lose the benefits that come from hearing the views of friends who disagree with them, and partly because such a society would pressure people too much to be quiet about their political views.

     But when exactly is it bad -- not illegal, but bad -- for private entities to fire people (or otherwise termiante their business relationships with people) because of the people's speech? When exactly is it bad for others to try to pressure those private entities into doing so, especially through threat of organized boycott? Was it wrong, for instance, for the critics of Larry Elder (a black libertarian talk show host in L.A., whom I very much like) to try to get him off the air by trying to organize boycotts of his advertisers? See Jill Stewart, Free This Man; Can Black Conservatives Speak Their Minds in America? Ask KABC Talk-Show Host Larry Elder, the Target of a Black Nationalist Group in L.A., New Times (L.A.), July 3, 1997. Was it wrong for people to try to organize public pressure aimed at getting Andy Rooney suspended, and Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder fired, for making allegedly racist comments? James Warren, Andy Rooney Suspended, But Denies Racist Comment, Chi. Trib., Feb. 9, 1990, sec. 1, at 3; Jerry Berger, Kennedy Decries Reagan Civil Rights Policies, United Press Int'l, Jan. 18, 1988, available in LEXIS, News Library, UPI File.

     Likewise, is it wrong for critics of the Dixie Chicks to try to cause economic harm to them because of their comments about President Bush? Is it wrong for people to organize boycotts of movies that star loudly (and perhaps rudely) anti-war actors? Of course, there's nothing wrong if someone is so disgusted by someone's speech that he just doesn't want to buy it any more. But that's not necessarily the same, from an ethical and pragmatic perspective, as the person's trying to organize a public campaign to get others to stop buying that material, or buying material produced by the speaker's distributors or advertisers.

     I don't have a good general answer to these questions, which is one reason why I haven't blogged about this issue until now. But I do think these are tough questions. They don't relate to constitutionality or often even to legality; but they do relate to other important though not legally enforceable values, such as tolerance, and the ability to speak without the fear of losing one's livelihood as a result. Those values aren't always the most important values, and other concerns may override them; but I don't think they can simply be pooh-poohed by the assertion that "I'm just exercising my right not to buy your products, and to try to persuade others to buy your products." Sure, we all have this right, just as we have the right to burn flags, to publish vitriolic attacks on public figures, and so on -- but that doesn't mean that it's always ethically and pragmatically proper to exercise such rights.

     So, here's my narrow proposal: We should indeed resist claims that private boycotts and firings violate the First Amendment -- those claims are legally incorrect. We should also resist the assumption that the First Amendment provides proper ethical and moral standards for the behavior of private actors; sometimes, as with private universities, it might, at least to a large extent, but sometimes it doesn't: If you want to say the Nazis were right, you have the First Amendment right to do that, but I'll kick you out of my house, and generally won't do business with you. But we should also look behind the erroneous claims of First Amendment protection, and take seriously the deeper arguments that generally underlie such claims -- the arguments that it is indeed unethical and in the long run harmful to try to economically retaliate against people in certain ways based on certain kinds of speech. And perhaps this inquiry might eventually give us some sense of what the right ethical and pragmatic guidelines should be here.

 
[Eugene Volokh, 9:15 AM]
A SOMEWHAT DIFFERENT TAKE ON FEDERALISM: This piece talks about an often overlooked component of federalism: not clashes between states and the federal government as such, but rather clashes among the states, when one state's policy has unwanted effects on another. An interesting analysis, dealing with matters from punitive damages to gay marriage to the death penalty and beyond.

 
[Eugene Volokh, 6:35 AM]
KNOW THE LAW, IF YOU WANT TO ENFORCE IT: As I've mentioned before, one problem with members of the Language Police is that they often object to usages that are perfectly proper even under standard prescriptivist rules. They claim that something is wrong (not just inelegant, but wrong); but when one checks all the authorities that, according to prescriptivists, are supposed to prescribe the rules, one sees that all the authorities actually approve of the usage.

     One reader, for instance, writes me:

I know that this one has been screwed up so often that it is now acceptable, but that is the essence of the search -- the ones that get abused badly become acceptable usages.

Seeing till instead of 'til just bugs me. This is just a blatant incorrect usage that happened so often that the rules changed.

Sounds like a powerful objection, at least to a prescriptivist -- but according to my Webster's Dictionary of English Usage,

Till and until are both venerable words, and are both highly respectable. The notion that til is a short form of until is erroneous: till is actually the older word, dating back to at least the 9th century. Until was first recorded around 1200.

My New Shorter Oxford cites one modern meaning ("up to the time of (an event)") as dating back to Middle English (1150-1349), another modern meaning ("until") as dating back to the late 16th century, and the earliest meaning ("To (expressing position, direction, relationship, etc.); as far as") as dating back to Old English (before 1149); I suspect that Webster's is referring to the latter meaning when it talks about the age of the word. If "till" was once "a blatant incorrect usage," that was at the latest in 1550 or thereabouts. Since then, it has been quite blatantly correct.

     The moral of the story: If you are going to be a prescriptivist, and are going to object to words on the grounds that they're newfangled, check to make sure that they really are newfangled. Get a dictionary that lists when words were first introduced, and look the word up before you object to it. Also, get some good usage dictionaries, and use them as well. If you really care about The Rules, you should check to make sure that you're applying the real rules, and not fictional ones.

 
[Eugene Volokh, 5:15 AM]
PACIFISM: Several days ago, I favorably quoted Dave Kopel, Paul Gallant, and Joanne Eisen, who wrote:

A popular bumper sticker says "If you can read this, thank a teacher." If you're a pacifist who hasn't been murdered or enslaved, thank a soldier.

Reader Christopher Monsour responds:

Of course, many pacifists believe that it is better to die than to kill another (and, presumably, better to die than to have someone else kill on your behalf). So they wouldn't want to thank a soldier for saving their lives. (For example, it's possible to read Jesus as holding something like this view -- and if you believe in an afterlife, it can make a lot of sense.)

Anyway, I certainly don't agree with this idea -- but I don't think that you can argue against pacifism just by pointing out that you might die if you adhere to it.

     Well, I think that in practice very many self-described pacifists would, if they were candid with themselves, thank the soldiers who fought and killed to keep them from being murdered or enslaved. But even if I'm mistaken, and most pacifists said "No, I never asked you to kill anyone to protect me from murder or slavery, and I'd rather that you hadn't," what about their loved ones who were saved from death or slavery by what a soldier did?

     If someone decides that it's better to die, or be enslaved, raped, or tortured than to have someone else kill on his behalf -- well, that's certainly not my approach, but if that's his own personal decision, then that's fine. But deciding that it's better for one's son or daughter to be killed, enslaved, raped, or tortured than to have someone else kill on the child's behalf is a deeply immoral form of pacifism.

 
[Eugene Volokh, 10:06 PM]
QUESTIONS: If you were Abu Abbas, master terrorist, why would you stay in a country that was being taken over by the rather competent military forces of one of your arch-enemies? Possible answer: "A Palestinian source told CNN's Christiane Amanpour that Abbas tried to flee to Syria, but was turned away at the border and was captured about 50 miles west of Baghdad." But why not flee earlier, before the war? I assume that Abbas, who has been able to get away from some pretty angry people for many years, is no fool, and didn't believe the Iraqi Information Minister. He must have known what was coming; why not high-tail it for Syria or Yemen or some such earlier? Did they not want him? Even if they didn't, couldn't he have bribed someone?

     These aren't rhetorical questions -- I just don't get it. I'm happy we caught him, but surprised.

 
[Eugene Volokh, 4:10 PM]
UCLA ANTI-WAR RESOLUTION: So about 200 of my UCLA colleagues (out of 3300 members of the Faculty Senate) voted 180-7 for what seems to be the following resolution (I couldn't find the official final text, but this is what it appears to be):

We, the assembled members of the faculty of the University of California Los Angeles, say to the President of the United States, that we:

1. condemn the United States invasion of Iraq;
2. deplore the doctrine of preventive war the President has used to justify it the invasion;
3. reaffirm our commitment to addressing international conflicts through the rule of law and the United Nations;
4. oppose the establishment of an American protectorate in Iraq; and
5. call for the establishment of a post-war representative government in Iraq, answerable to the United Nations, which guarantees to Iraqis inalienable personal, political and civil rights.

     Why, you might ask, should anyone care about such a resolution? Would it be for the force of its reasoning? Well, no, because no reasoning is given.

     Would it be because of the expertise of its supporters? No; it seems extremely likely that the great majority of people in that room were not experts on international relations, Middle Eastern politics, international law, or any other relevant fields. Without such expertise, it makes no sense for the voters' bare statements ("We condemn . . .") to have any persuasive force.

     Would it be because this is somehow representative of UCLA faculty generally? No, since there's absolutely no reason to think that the 6% of faculty members who split 180-7 on the issue were at all representative of the faculty -- and even if they were, why should we care what a faculty containing musicologists, lawyers, dentists, chemists, political scientists, and art historians thinks?

     So the resolution has no real relevance to anyone's decisionmaking process. All it really says is that a small fraction of the UCLA faculty decided to use the faculty decisionmaking process to express their own personal views, on which I strongly suspect most of them had no real academic expertise, while trying to buttress them using the imprimatur of our institution. OK, colleagues, if that's what you wanted, that's what you got. But tell me, please: As between (1) the reputation of the UCLA faculty strengthening the persuasiveness of your resolution, and (2) the resolution weakening the reputation of the UCLA faculty, which do you think is the more likely?

 
[Eugene Volokh, 1:55 PM]
MORE ON THE ALLEGED "BAPTISMS FOR BATHS" ARMY CHAPLAIN INCIDENT: According to an e-mail I got that purports to quote the Religion News Service (note that I haven't found the original text on the Web, but I haven't looked very hard),

A U.S. Army inquiry has determined that a Southern Baptist chaplain in Iraq who reportedly was giving baptisms to dirty soldiers has not been using coercion.

"I am confident that Chaplain (Josh) Llano does not, has not and will not use coercion in the exercise of his official responsibilities," said Chaplain (Col.) Al Buckner, director of operations at the Army's chief of chaplains office at the Pentagon, in a statement.

A report from the Knight Ridder news agency about Llano's possible exchange of baptisms for baths prompted strong criticism from organizations concerned about church-state separation.

That news story stated that the 32-year-old chaplain, who described himself as a "Southern Baptist evangelist," told a reporter: "It's simple. They want water. I have it, as long as they agree to get baptized."

A statement from the U.S. Army's Office of the Chief of Public Affairs said Llano does not recall making such a statement.

"He did make some of the remarks the reporter attributed to him, but not all to her, and not in the context or with the intent the article appeared to suggest," the statement reads.

The Army said soldiers at Camp Bushmaster were not suffering from a water shortage and the chaplain was only given water for baptism after water needs of the soldiers were met.

"Soldiers had no need to resort to being baptized to get clean," the Army said.

Mark Seibel, managing editor of The Miami Herald, defended the original story by Meg Laughlin, a Herald reporter who is covering the war in Iraq for the news agency.

"I don't think the story suggested coercion," he said. "That's just how some people want to read it. ... We stand by the story as it was written. He made the remarks that he made and Meg was not the only person who heard them." . . .

Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Eric Wester, spokesman for the Army chief of chaplains office, said the Army report was based on information from a commander, public affairs office and supervisory chaplains in the region. . . .

 
[Eugene Volokh, 8:10 AM]
WHY MINORS IN CAMBRIDGE MAY NOT SHAVE WITH MANUAL RAZORS? Readers Graeme Hein and Brett Coffee point out that the Cambridge ordinance I mentioned yesterday (Cambridge, Mass. Municipal Code sec. 9.16.110) also seems to prohibit the selling or giving to minors of manual disposable razors (and possibly some manual nondisposable ones), since these are literally "razor blade[s] fitted with a handle." I'm sure it wouldn't be applied this way, but it still shows that this wasn't a first-class drafting job; surely they could have at least put a length requirement on it, as many laws that ban the carrying of razors do:

A. Findings. Violent incidents perpetrated by and upon young people in Cambridge have brought to light the relatively each access to and widespread availability of weapons or instruments that can be used as weapons. The City Council determines that reasonable measures are needed to prohibit the sale of items whose primary purpose is for use as weapons again[st] people. State law prohibits the manufacture and sale of certain types of knives, but does not address other dangerous instruments of concern.

B. Sale Prohibited. No person shall sell or expose for sale, exchange, give or loan to any person under eighteen (18) years of age any of the following:
1. springback knife;
2. fixed or locking blade knife;
3. dirk or dagger;
4. ice pick;
5. tool or implement having a point similar to an ice pick and a shaft; or a
6. straight-edged razor or razor blade fitted with a handle.

C. Exemption. The work-related use of any of the instruments detailed in Section B of this ordinance shall not be deemed to be a violation [of] this ordinance.

Oh, except if you work, and you're shaving to be presentable at work, then maybe you'd be exempted.

 
[Eugene Volokh, 8:07 AM]
gal.blogspot.com/2003_04_01_isthatlegal_archive.html#200150262">Eric Muller agrees that the length of the commander-in-chief clause (see several posts down) tells us little about its importance, but suggests that size sometimes does matter:

It is, of course, true that some constitutional provisions are short because they don't need to be longer. But the length of a constitutional provision doesn't necessarily mean nothing about its importance. For example, the Constitution devotes a lot more words (and clauses) in Article I to describing and specifying the Congress's military powers than it does to the President's in Article II. From that fact one could surely argue that the distinction in the lengths of the provisions shows that the Framers envisioned more of the military power residing in Congress than in the presidency. (Of course, one could also argue that there's more in Article I than in Article II because Congress felt that the legislature needed greater specification of its powers in order to limit them -- but that, too, is an argument that draws meaning from length.)

I don't think this is quite right. The length of a constitutional provision, it seems to me, is chiefly related to the amount of detail that Congress feels the need to use, which in turn has to do with (1) the inherent complexity of the question, (2) the degree to which this complexity can be left to future politicians and judges to resolve, as opposed to having to be very clearly set out in detail, as election rules (such as the Twelfth Amendment) need to be, and (3) the degree to which this complexity can be resolved just by referring to tradition, since traditional practice can generally be maintained quite tersely just using a reference to that tradition. So when the Framers anted to maintain existing rules, they needed less space than when they wanted to change the rules.

     The English practice was that the Executive (there, the king) had very broad military power; according to Justice Joseph Story,

In Great Britain, the king is not only commander-in-chief of the army, and navy, and militia, but he can declare war; and, in time of war, can raise armies and navies, and call forth the militia of his own mere will. So, that (to use the words of Mr. Justice Blackstone) the sole supreme government and command of the militia within all his majesty's realms and dominions, and of all forces by sea and land, and of all forts and places of strength, ever was and is the undoubted right of his majesty; and both houses or either house of parliament cannot, nor ought to pretend to the same. The only power of check by parliament is, the refusal of supplies . . . .

See also St. George Tucker. The Framers decided to shift some of this power to the legislature, and to acknowledge some power of the states (which of course didn't exist as quasi-sovereigns under the English constitution) over the militia; the change in traditional practice necessarily required more space than merely preserving to the Executive its familiar power as commander-in-chief (what Blackstone called being "the first in military command").

 
[Eugene Volokh, 1:29 AM]
THE ERRORS JUST KEEP COMING: Another error in the New York Times op-ed mentioned in the last few posts (starting here), pointed out by reader Richard Nieporent; check out this line:

Indeed, none of the presidents who governed this country during its great wars defined themselves as commanders in chief -- not Washington, not Lincoln, not Wilson, not Roosevelt.

Washington was, for pretty fundamental reasons, not one of the presidents who governed this country during any of its great wars.

     This isn't a huge error on its own, of course, and if it were the only error, I wouldn't make much of it. But take this small error of early American history, add the small error of recent American history as to Reagan, add the three errors (if I'm not mistaken) of ancient Roman history, and add the unsound approach to understanding the Constitution, and you've got a pretty seriously flawed piece. And that's pretty much on the relatively uncontestable facts alone, without even getting to the inferences and the judgments.

 
[Eugene Volokh, 12:42 AM]
ROMAN HISTORY: While I'm on the New York Times op-ed mentioned below, here's the last paragraph:

When the Roman republic gave way to empire, the new supreme ruler, Augustus chose to name himself not "rex," king, but "imperator," from which our words emperor and empire derive, even though its original meaning was more like commander in chief. Thereafter Roman emperors came to depend increasingly on their military. Will our future presidents? Let us doubt it. And yet . . .

Now most of my knowledge of ancient Roman history is derived from historical novels, so I can't claim to be an expert on this -- but I'm sure that some of our readers are. So let me mention my understanding of this phase of Roman history, and please correct me if I'm wrong. I'd normally be reluctant to argue with a historian (John Lukacs, the author of the op-ed, is a historian and a biographer of Churchill), but given his other errors, I've lost my reticence on this score.

1. Augustus didn't call himself "rex" because for centuries the title of "rex" was abhorred by Romans as quite foreign to their constitution; "imperator," on the other hand, was a familiar and well-accepted title. Augustus wasn't deliberately choosing a military title over a civilian one -- he was choosing one that allowed him to maintain a fiction of constitutional continuity, rather than one that would have clearly stood for an utter repudiation of several centuries of tradition.



2. The original meaning of "imperator" was not like "commander-in-chief" (a term that's crucial to Lukacs' op-ed, and therefore one that he should be expected to use precisely); rather, in the words of the 1913 Webster's Unabridged, it was "originally an appellation of honor by which Roman soldiers saluted their general after an important victory. Subsequently the title was conferred as a recognition of great military achievements by the senate, whence it carried [with] it some special privileges." The title was not understood to confer command over other general, and you could have several generals around each of which had been hailed as "imperator," and none of which would be "in chief" relative to each other or to other generals.



3. Roman emperors depended on the military from the beginning; in fact, leading rule through control of the legions continued pretty much nonstop starting with Caesar's takeover. The rulers' use of military titles, if it did begin with Augustus, thus followed the conversion of Rome into a military dictatorship, rather than preceding it.

The biggest error in the closing paragraph is actually not one of these -- rather, it's the utterly unfounded assertion that the behavior Lukacs describes (Presidents saluting soldiers, personally unmartial Presidents being supposedly more interested in using the military, and so on) is even remotely likely to push America into military rule. That, though, is an error of judgment; the errors I describe above are, I think, errors of history, and because of that are more clearly errors. If the errors are mine, please let me know. But it sounds to me like the errors are the historian's.

 
[Eugene Volokh, 10:15 PM]
ANOTHER ERROR IN THE NEW YORK TIMES OP-ED I MENTION BELOW: Roger Schlafly points out:

A NY Times Op-ed attacks Ronald Reagan's military salute as "puerile", and says:

But about 20 years ago the militarization of the image of the presidency began. It started with Mr. Reagan, who had no record of military service and who spent World War II in Hollywood (something that he tried on occasion to obscure).

It is hard to see how the NY Times could make such an egregious mistake about one of our greatest presidents. From Grolier's encyclopedia:

Reagan interrupted his acting career in 1942 and served for three years in the U.S. Army, for which he made training films. After he was discharged, with the rank of captain, he began turning toward a political career.

. . .

Schlafly goes on to challenge (quite persuasively, I think), some of the op-ed's other criticisms of Reagan. Seems like a sloppy bit of work for the newspaper of record.

 
[Eugene Volokh, 6:46 PM]
WHAT A STRANGE ARGUMENT: An op-ed by John Lukacs in the New York Times contains this remarkable assertion:

Yes, Section 2 of Article II of the Constitution says: "The president shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States . . ." Thereafter that very paragraph lists other presidential powers that have nothing to do with military matters. The brevity of the mention of a commander in chief -- it is not even a full sentence -- suggests that the country's founders did not attach very great importance to this role."

Huh? Since when do we measure the importance of a constitutional provision by its length? Was the long Twelfth Amendment, which changed the rules for electing the President and Vice-President, somehow thought by its framers to be more important than the short Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery? Was the power of Congress to regulate commerce among the states -- also not even a full sentence ("To regulate commerce . . . among the several States . . .") -- thought to be somehow unimportant? Some provisions are short simply because they're relatively clear and require no elaboration, especially in a relatively tersely drafted Constitution; that means nothing about their importance.

     Thanks to reader David Throop for alerting me to this remarkable assertion.

 
[Eugene Volokh, 5:52 PM]
OPENING PRAYERS IN FRONT OF UTAH GOVERNMENT BODIES: The Utah Supreme Court held last Friday that Utah government bodies that allow some opening invocations at the start of their meetings must allow all sorts of invocations, including nonreligious ones. That, the court held, is dictated by the Utah Constitution, though several years before a federal appellate court in Utah held (Snyder v. Murray City Corp., 124 F.3d 1349 (10th Cir. 1997)) that it wasn't required by the U.S. Constitution. Since state and local governments must abide both by the federal and the state constitutions, and since state constitutions may impose greater constraints on state governments than does the federal one, the Utah Supreme Court's decision is dispositive in Utah, and may also be influential in whatever other states choose to follow the Utah approach.

 
[Eugene Volokh, 4:01 PM]
MORE ON GETTING COOPERATION FROM A DOCUDRAMA'S SUBJECT: Reader Don Gordon, a lawyer who works on reality shows and docudramas, points to another nonlegal reason why producers buy the rights to a person's life story, or more accurately buy the person's cooperation -- publicity:

Life story agreements generally require the subject to go on a press tour in conjunction with the airing of the docudrama. Someone like Pfc. Lynch could undoubtedly get booked on the top shows on the morning talk show circuit like Today and GMA. The publicity value of such appearances are what justify the rights fees . . . .

Sounds accurate.

 
[Eugene Volokh, 3:43 PM]
VIBRATORS: Naturally, I got over 45 responses to the vibrators post:

Imagine that a close single female friend (just a friend) mentioned to you that she has a vibrator that's shaped like a highly stylized penis. It's not too anatomically correct, just a normal vibrator. Assume that this came up in a suitable context . . . . What would you think?

     I suspect that in my general circle -- coastal, relatively socially liberal professionals -- most people wouldn't think much of it. We expect that many women use vibrators occasionally. We've heard about them often enough that they're hardly shocking. If anything, some men might find the idea a bit exciting, perhaps because they see it as a sign that the woman is at ease with her sexuality.

     OK, now imagine that a close single male friend (just a friend) mentioned to you, under similar circumstances, that he has a vibrator that's shaped like a stylized vagina. What would you think then?

     My sense is that many people will think it's a bit icky, in some hard to pin down way. Not everyone would; some people won't care. But I think that a much higher fraction of people -- again, at least people in my social circle -- would be put off by the idea of a man using a vagina-shaped vibrator than a woman using a penis-shaped vibrator. . . . Is that so, and, if it is, then why? Why is this sort of sexuality seen as fine for women but not for men? . . .

I can't summarize them all, but let me mention some of the main theories:

     1. Probably the most common theory -- and the one that I had before I blogged the original post -- is what we might call the Signaling Lack of Sexual Success theory. If you hear that a woman wants sex but doesn't have a partner, what do you think? She's picky; she's afraid of being emotionally hurt; she's getting over a bad break-up; she doesn't have the time for a serious commitment; she's worried about pregnancy; she doesn't want to be thought of as promiscuous. If you hear that a man wants sex but doesn't have a partner, what do you think? He can't get a woman to sleep with him. A vast overgeneralization, of course, but it has some truth to it. Therefore, a male desire to use a vibrator is evidence that he's sexually unsuccessful, in a way that doesn't apply the same way to women. Hence, women with vibrator = sexy; man with vibrator = pathetic.

     2. The Signaling Too Much Interest in Sex theory, Anatomical Division: Women, several correspondents told me -- and this seems right, though naturally I lack personal knowledge -- often find it hard to get an orgasm (at least the way they like it) without a vibrator; men generally find their hands quite adequate to the job, simply because male anatomy is different from female. Therefore, a woman with a vibrator is showing merely a natural interest in sexual satisfaction, while a man is showing a bit too much interest. I'm not sure whether this is right; I think most people of my circle wouldn't be that troubled if a woman told them that she was using some special, extraordinarily stimulating vibrator. But perhaps this ties in to the next theory, which is . . . .

     3. The Signaling Too Much Interest in Sex theory, Social Division: Some people assume (whether rightly or wrongly) that men are more interested in sex than women are, and that in fact men are too interested in sex, and women are not interested enough. I do think this is a fairly common assumption, though I express no opinion of whether it's accurate. If that's so, then when these people hear that a woman is more interested in sex than they expected (which the vibrator comment signals), they approve, because it shows that she's more likely to have the supposedly right level of sexual interest. But when they hear that a man is more interested in sex than they expected, they disapprove, because they assume that he's even more sex-obsessed than they think men are and ought to be.

     4. The Aesthetics theory: Naked women having sex are attractive and sexy. Naked men having sex are ugly (at least to heterosexuals, both men and women, and again I realize that this is a vast overgeneralization). If you hear about someone using a vibrator, you visualize them using the vibrator; if the resulting image is unpleasant, then you're more likely to disapprove.

     Now I suspect straight men do perceive things this way, but the tough question is whether straight women perceive it, too. My tentative sense is that at least many women do, at least as to some extent; but then the question is why they do. Part of the reason might be that straight women are less interested in men's looks than straight men are in women's, but I'm told that straight women are indeed at least somewhat interested in men's looks. So I suspect that this ties into the signaling theories -- if the image of men masturbating with an artificial vagina is unappealing to women, it's probably because of what this signals about the man.

     5. I also saw some Political theories, such as radicaling feminism has led people to disapprove of masculine sexuality; I'm skeptical, because I doubt that most people in my circle have really bought these theories. There were also some theories that using artificial devices for attractiveness (makeup, jewelry, hair dye, plastic surgery) is more permitted for women than for men, for whom anything beyond clothes and cologne still raise some eyebrows(though note clothes are a very important artificial device for attractiveness), and that this carries over to using artificial devices for sexual pleasure -- but I'm just unpersuaded by the asserted psychological connection between tolerance for attractiveness-enhancing artificiality and tolerance for pleasure-enhancing artificiality. There were some Harmful Psychological Effects theories, mostly suggesting that some people fear that use of vibrators is dehumanizing, and that since men are already more likely to have emotionally disconnected sex than women, that fear would be more so for men. But I don't quite buy that, either, since masturbations seems equally emotionally disconnected with toys as without. There was even the Rugged Individualist theory ("I'm a man, and I can do it myself, without any commercial assistance!"). And there was the Familiarity theory -- we've just heard more about vibrators for women, and are thus more used to them; if enough men come out of the closet about their artificial friends, we'll become as jaded about this as we are about female vibrators.

     So my favorite theory is still #1: Real men have sex with real vaginas. And masturbation? Oh, no, no, we won't tell, and don't ask.

 
[Eugene Volokh, 2:44 PM]
"DOES PFC. JESSICA LYNCH OWN THE MOVIE RIGHTS TO HER LIFE?" I ask and answer this question in Slate's Explainer today. Thanks to reader Kevin Connors for suggesting the idea.

 
[Eugene Volokh, 1:46 PM]
VERY COMMONLY MISSPELLED WORDS ON THE WEB: An interesting list (though it makes no pretense of being complete).

 
[Eugene Volokh, 11:50 AM]
"REHABILITATION": Orin's post from Saturday (which points to an article about how a mafia don apparently duped some extremely respected psychiatrists into believing that he was suffering from dementia) offers a good example of why many voters -- including those who support laws such as Megan's Laws or Three Strikes laws -- aren't persuaded by arguments that some people have been "rehabilitated."

     "This criminal has been rehabilitated" at best means "this criminal has persuaded a psychiatrist or two that he has been rehabilitated." That sort of inquiry is hardly an exact science, and it's not surprising that many people don't put much stock in its results.

 
[Eugene Volokh, 11:23 AM]
SNEER QUOTES: Alan Jacobs (a professor of English) makes a very good point about language and rhetoric:

Scare quotes have two functions, the first of which is quite straightforward: They allow their users very easily to express incredulity about, and often contempt for, the views of their political opponents. But they also allow those users to avoid the hard work of thinking up their own descriptions of events or people or ideas. And they're parasitic: They suck all their nourishment from the host words, contributing nothing of their own. Fisk's sneer quotes -- he's not as scary as he'd like to be -- allow him to express his revulsion at the very notion of describing what's happening in Iraq as "liberation," but relieve him of the obligation to say just what he thinks is happening in that city. Is it (as many left-wing critics have said) a new form of colonization? Ah, but that is a claim too easily refuted, unless one wishes to stretch the term beyond all historical recognition. Is it occupation? But if so, we would need to have a conversation about the purposes of occupation, some of which can be better than others. This is all too complicated; it's so much simpler to wheel out the trusty old inverted commas.

(I have a suspicion also that many journalists, even those most addicted to the scare quote, would say that it's their job merely to report, to describe -- leave it to the editorialists and news analysts to offer positive explanations. But it is surely a curious understanding of reporting that allows the journalist merely, and just typographically, to cast doubt on the claims of others, without offering any reasons for that doubt or any alternatives to those claims.)

This is similar, I think, to my criticism a few months ago of the excessive use of metaphors or other figurative usages: All these rhetorical devices often hint at a substantive argument without making it explicit, and thus without acknowledging the need to justify the criticism explicitly.

     Jacobs gives other examples; you should read his whole piece. Thanks to InstaPundit for the pointer.

 
[Eugene Volokh, 10:25 AM]
"SMALL SUCCESSES OUTWEIGHED: Confusion, looting and tension about Syria overshadow the few achievements of this war." Yup, that's The Guardian's headline today. What more can one say about that, other than to quote it? Thanks to Jeff Jarvis and InstaPundit for the pointer.

 
[Eugene Volokh, 9:57 AM]
PRESCRIPTIVISM VS. DESCRIPTIVISM: Matt Rustler, a convert to descriptivism, explains things well. (If that link doesn't work for you because of the Blogger archive bug, click here and scroll down.)

 
[Eugene Volokh, 9:40 AM]
LUCINDA WILLIAMS: I'm listening to Williams' new album (World Without Tears); as usual, there are quite a few songs that just don't do it for me, but one is an absolute stunner, Those Three Days. Here are the lyrics, which of course don't do the song justice -- but if you're considering buying the album, definitely listen to this track:

You say there's always gonna be this thing
Between us days are filled with dreams
Scorpions crawl across my screen
Make their home beneath my skin
Underneath my dress stick their tongues
Bite through flesh down to the bone
And I have been so fuckin' alone
Since those three days

Did you only want me for those three days?
Did you only need me for those three days?
Did you love me forever
just for those three days?
For those three days

You built a nest inside my soul
You rest your head on leaves of gold
You managed to crawl inside my brain
You found a hole and in you came
You sleep like a baby breathing
Comfortably between truth and pain
But the truth is nothing's been the same
Since those three days

[Repeat Chorus]

 
[Eugene Volokh, 8:21 AM]
ANOTHER KIPLING POEM: I ran across another Kipling poem that I had unfortunately forgotten; it was written in 1916, prompted by the Battle of Jutland. As with the quote Friday, I am not posting this as a comment on recent events; I just like the poem (notwithstanding the fact that it works less well, in retrospect, as to World War I than it does for some other wars, such as World War II), and hope you do, too.

The Verdicts

Not in the thick of the fight,
Not in the press of the odds,
Do the heroes come to their height,
Or we know the demi-gods.

That stands over till peace.
We can only perceive
Men returned from the seas,
Very grateful for leave.

They grant us sudden days
Snatched from their business of war;
But we are too close to appraise
What manner of men they are.

And, whether their names go down
With age-kept victories,
Or whether they battle and drown
Unreckoned, is hid from our eyes.

They are too near to be great,
But our children shall understand
When and how our fate
Was changed, and by whose hand.

Our children shall measure their worth.
We are content to be blind . . .
But we know that we walk on a new-born earth
With the saviours of mankind.

 
[Eugene Volokh, 8:04 AM]
A FUNNY SORT OF "SELF-DETERMINATION," OR FAR LEFT ANTI-AMERICANISM AS ETHNIC ESSENTIALISM: Incidentally, the De Genova interview cited below mentions the following familiar but in my view incomprehensible concern about "self-determination":

Q. Your comment about wishing for "a million Mogadishus" has attracted the most attention. I read your letter in the "Columbia Daily Spectator," which gave some more context, but I have to confess I don't see how the context changes the meaning of that statement.

A. I was referring to what Mogadishu symbolizes politically. The U.S. invasion of Somalia was humiliated in an excruciating way by the Somali people. And Mogadishu was the premier symbol of that. What I was really emphasizing in the larger context of my comments was the question of Vietnam and that historical lesson. . . . What I was intent to emphasize was that the importance of Vietnam is that it was a defeat for the U.S. war machine and a victory for the cause of human self-determination.

     What in heaven's name do the actions of a warlord in Mogadishu have to do with decisionmaking "by the Somali people," or "human self-determination"? What did the Saddam regime have to do with "human self-determination"? The U.S. invasion at least yields some possible hope that the Iraqi people will determine for themselves who will govern them -- the Saddam regime offered no such hope.

     Or does "self-determination" by "[a country's] people" somehow mean "decision by [the country's] warlord," on the theory that he somehow innately represents the people whom he is ruling by force? And this representation must obviously flow just from ethnic connection, since there's no other foundation through which he's a more suitable ruler than, say, you or I.

 
[Eugene Volokh, 7:57 AM]
INTERVIEW WITH NICHOLAS DE GENOVA, in the Chronicle of Higher Education (free section). The culprit, apparently, is "a devious yellow journalist," though apparently (1) for all his deviousness the yellow journalist actually reported De Genova's remarks (though not the spin that De Genova is now trying to place on those remarks) quite accurately, and (2) some of De Genova's fellow panelists, who heard his remarks in person rather than filtered through this journalist's account, seemed to disapprove of them, too.

 
[Eugene Volokh, 6:26 AM]
WHY CAMBRIDGE KIDS MAY NOT COOK, or doing anything else that requires a knife: According to Cambridge, Mass. Municipal Code sec. 9.16.110,

A. Findings. Violent incidents perpetrated by and upon young people in Cambridge have brought to light the relatively each access to and widespread availability of weapons or instruments that can be used as weapons. The City Council determines that reasonable measures are needed to prohibit the sale of items whose primary purpose is for use as weapons again[st] people. State law prohibits the manufacture and sale of certain types of knives, but does not address other dangerous instruments of concern.

B. Sale Prohibited. No person shall sell or expose for sale, exchange, give or loan to any person under eighteen (18) years of age any of the following:
1. springback knife;
2. fixed or locking blade knife;
3. dirk or dagger;
4. ice pick;
5. tool or implement having a point similar to an ice pick and a shaft; or a
6. straight-edged razor or razor blade fitted with a handle.

C. Exemption. The work-related use of any of the instruments detailed in Section B of this ordinance shall not be deemed to be a violation this ordinance.

Sounds plausible in theory -- wouldn't we want to keep dangerous weapons away from kids? But unfortunately, subsection B(2) prohibites, among other things, loaning to anyone under age 18 a "fixed . . . blade knife" (except for work-related uses). Unless I'm mistaken, all normal knives, including kitchen knives and steak knives, are "fixed-blade knives." The term isn't defined in the Cambridge Municipal Code, or in the Massachusetts statutes. I've looked around and found no other legal definition. And the standard definition appears to be simply a knife with a fixed blade, which, as I mentioned, covers the great majority of cooking knives, plus of course knives used to whittle wood, cut ropes, and do a huge range of other things. And there's of course no exception for parents or guardians loaning knives to their own kids, for instance to cook the family dinner.

     Now it's true that subsection A does say that "reasonable measures are needed to prohibit the sale of items whose primary purpose is for use as weapons again[st] people," and one could argue that subsection B should be read in light of that. But:

1. Subsection A is just the findings, not a definition section, and subsection B doesn't explicitly refer to A. Subsection B says no loaning of fixed blade knives to under-18-year-olds, no ifs, ands, or buts; and subsection A doesn't say the contrary.



2. Subsection A condemns both "weapons" and "instruments that can be used as weapons." Presumably "items whose primary purpose is for use as weapons against people" are the "weapons" part of this duo -- but kitchen knives (though probably not steak knives) would fit well into "instruments that can be used as weapons." So even if subsection A limits subsection B, it may well still allow subsection B to be applied to kitchen knives and other very sharp knives, though it might exclude steak knives and butter knives.



3. Given that one category listed in subsection B, "ice picks," seems to go beyond "items whose primary purpose is for use as weapons against people" -- I believe they are still often sold to break ice -- it stands to reason that the other categories, which I stress again have no qualifying language attached to them, would also be categorically prohibited, even if their primary purpose isn't for use as weapons.

     My challenge, then, for interested readers, especially ones who live in Cambridge: Get in touch with the City Attorney's office, and ask them whether it's OK to loan a cooking knife to an under-18-year-old who's planning to do some cooking. If they say it is OK, ask them why. Is the knife not a "fixed blade knife"? Is loaning not "loaning"? Get an answer in writing, please, and pass it along to me; I'd love to report further on this.

 
[Eugene Volokh, 5:53 AM]
ARMY LAUNCHES INQUIRY INTO THE BATHE-IF-YOU-CONVERT CHAPLAIN:

The Army's chief of chaplains has begun an official inquiry into reports that a Southern Baptist chaplain in Iraq has been offering U.S. troops baths in exchange for being baptized.

"It's simple. They want water. I have it, as long as they agree to get baptized," Josh Llano, a 32-year-old chaplain who describes himself as a Southern Baptist evangelist, told the Miami Herald.

According to the newspaper, Llano required soldiers to listen to a 90-minute sermon before taking part in an hourlong baptism ceremony featuring Bible quotations.

Lt. Col. Eric Wester, spokesman for the Army Office of the Chief of Chaplains, said Army Chief of Chaplains Gaylord Gunhus "was very concerned about the appalling report as presented." . . .

"I cannot verify that he's encouraging people to be baptized in order to obtain a bath," Wester told Religion News Service.

"What I can say is that the Army chief of chaplains has requested additional information about the accuracy of the quotations and details of the actions of Chaplain Llano."

John Yarbrough, vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention's North American Mission Board, issued a statement Wednesday saying that the board is disturbed by the report but has not been able to contact the chaplain to ask him about the story's accuracy. . . .

Very glad to hear it, for reasons I mention here. Thanks to read James Foster for the pointer.

 
[Eugene Volokh, 12:27 PM]
SCRAPPLEFACE IS ESPECIALLY GOOD TODAY, thanks to Den Beste for the link.