Year-End Review

For today I thought I’d just review the past year of blog entries. Somehow I’ve managed to produce 266 of them over the year.

My favorites?

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Rehab

You may recall that I May Be Stupid After All. While testing my limits I overdid it and ended up losing about 2.5mm of the well-conditioned skin on the ball of my foot.

Yesterday was my first hike since then.

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Barefoot Locomotion

Ever ride a train barefoot? Well, here’s a little entry about some folks who did.

It’s described in the Union Pacific Employees Magazine of June, 1887 (Vol. 2, No. 5, p. 214):

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How Judges Cheat – Part 2

Yesterday I gave an example of how judges cheat by simply ignoring what the law says, and not following the rules of judicial construction. Today I’m going to give examples from my own cases that show a way of cheating that never shows up in the published opinions. Unless you are able to read the briefs of the case, there is no way to know what the court’s opinion left out (though sometimes you can find that if a dissent is written).

I lost my appeal in my lawsuit against the Fairfield County District Library, with the opinion being issued on December 14, 2011.

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How Judges Cheat – Part 1

Judges are human, too. However, they’ve had all sorts of legal training, and that presumably includes logic. So it is rather distressing to see them cheat to come up with rulings that they want, instead of what the law, and the rules of judicial construction, say they should.

Now, by “cheat” here, I don’t mean the stronger definition: “to practice fraud or deceit”. It’s more along the lines of “to violate rules or regulations“. I’m not even sure it is deliberate.

But the effect is the same.

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Merry Christmas

I’ll be taking a few days off from blogging. See you again on Monday or Tuesday. I hope you have a good time visiting with family and watching the sun return from the south. In the meantime, I leave you with a picture of my mother’s dog, Ginger.

Ginger, a Shetland Sheepdog (Sheltie)

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Statehouse: Quality Comments

I mentioned the other day that the story of my Statehouse battle had been picked up by a few papers. It’s interesting just where those stories were, and just what sort of comments they generated from readers.

From the list that Google generates, about 60% were from within Ohio, while the rest were a smattering from around the country, including some smaller towns around Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, two towns in Connecticut, and even Beaumont, Texas.

But the comments are always the most interesting for being an interesting combination of people who get it, and other people who like to wallow in ignorance.

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If You Were on the Jury . . .

One of the reasons so often given for restricting barefooters is the fear of a lawsuit. Of course, they never seem to think about lawsuits from injuries from high heels or other footwear, and they never really think about just what sort of injury a barefooted customer would most likely get. (Is a cut really worth suing over?)

But I suppose it could occasionally happen. What would you do if you were on the jury . . .?

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Barefoot Sailors

We somehow often think of sailors as barefoot. I imagine that comes from the movies we’ve seen.

But is it accurate?

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Statehouse Hitch

Here’s an update on what happened at the Statehouse yesterday. As you may recall, in I Need Your Help: The Ohio Statehouse, I gave the background about how the folks that control the Statehouse, the CSRAB, had made a rule requiring shoes in the Statehouse. That rule then had to be approved by JCARR (or, I should say, JCARR would hold a hearing on it, and could decide to recommend that the rule be invalidated).

I then asked you all to write to JCARR opposing the rule. You did, and that hearing was held yesterday.

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Big Justice vs. Little Justice

I have a friend who I’ve talked to about “big justice” and “little justice”. One thing I’ve always had to battle in my lawsuits is the perception that fighting to go barefoot is just “little justice.” Oh, just put on some shoes. Oh, that’s too minor of an insult to fight.

I’ve had courts get mad at me for wasting their time. In my suit against the Columbus Metropolitan Library, I had the trial court judge there admonish me:

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They . . . Forgot

I’ve argued before, in “No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service”: It’s Really Fairly Recent, that people have forgotten that NSNSNS signs were created to keep out hippies (and other “undesirables”). Over time, they tried to rationalize why such signs existed, and came up with non-existent health code excuses.

Unfortunately, in the same way, judges forget the histories of the rights they are supposed to enforce.

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Anderson Cooper: Shoeless Clueless

Last Monday Anderson Cooper was on an airplane and saw a flyer who was barefoot. He tweeted about it..

The guy is clueless.

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The Ohio Statehouse: Legislative Authorization

[If you have not yet written and sent your letters, please do so now.]

In this entry I thought I’d look at the legal issued involved in whether the Ohio Statehouse (the CSRAB) has the authority to create its shoe rule.

I think it is pretty clear that it does not.

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The Ohio Statehouse: Write Those Letters Today

I would like to remind you all that time is short to write to the members of JCARR. If at all possible, get your letters sent today. At the very, very latest, the letters can be sent Monday morning, but with the hearing at 1:30pm, they may not see those on time.

In yesterday’s entry, a typo kept the link to the list of JCARR members from appearing. That is now fixed, and the list is here.

There are actually two battles we are fighting here. The first is to tell JCARR why they should continue to allow bare feet. The second is to tell JCARR how they can do so as part of their responsibilities. You folks can concentrate on the “why” (though including one of the hows, as per yesterday’s entry, would be good), and I will concentrate on the “how”. I will hit them with the legal reasons why I don’t think the Statehouse has been authorized to make such a rule.

If you have any questions, put them into a comment and I will try to answer them.

Finally, yesterday’s entry had 160 hits on it. If everybody who saw it yesterday wrote a letter and sent it to the JCARR members, that could really make an impact.

Thanks again.

 

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