NOW THAT KAVANAUGH HAS BEEN SWORN IN, IS IT MORE LIKELY OR LESS LIKELY THAT THE COURT WILL GRANT REVIEW IN METCALF v. UNITED STATES?: I can make arguments running both ways. What I have a hard time understanding is why anybody would think the Thirteenth Amendment (slavery prohibition) gave Congress the power in 2009 to pass a law against racially-motivated hate crimes, long after any threat of slavery’s return had passed. But you can judge for yourself if you read this brief.

ON THIS DAY IN 1893, Finley Peter Dunne’s fictional character, Mr. Dooley, first appeared in print in the Chicago Evening Post. For 33 years, Dunne furnished Chicagoans with wit and political wisdom though this amiable Irish immigrant bartender.   Among Dunne’s better-known quotations:

EXPERTS: “A war expert is a man ye niver heerd iv before. If ye can think iv annywan whose face is onfamilyar to ye an’ ye don’t raymimber his name, an’ he’s got a job on a paaper ye didn’t know was published, he’s a war expert.”

THANKSGIVING: “The Puritans gave thanks for being preserved from the Indians, and we give thanks for being preserved from the Puritans.”

TRUST: “Trust everybody. But always cut the cards.”

VEGETARIANS: “Most vegetarians look so much like the food they eat that they can be classified as cannibals.”

There’s a lot more, some of which will sound familiar and some of which will sound fresh. Much of it was originally rendered in dialect, but (as you can see from the above) you’ll often find it in standard English.

WALTER WILLIAMS ON RACIAL DISPARITIES IN SCHOOL DISCIPLINE: He cites this article. (Yes, I want you to read that article. That’s why I keep posting it. And I want you to read the Walter Williams essay.   The issue is important, more important than most of the crap that passes for news in the modern era.)

ON THIS DAY IN 1854, WILLIAM CRAWFORD GORGAS, WHO FOUGHT YELLOW FEVER AND MALARIA AT THE PANAMA CANAL, WAS BORN: It also marks an interesting coincidence in history. The doctor who delivered little Billy Gorgas was Dr. Josiah Clark Nott, a general practitioner in Mobile, Alabama. Six years before, Dr. Nott had published a paper in the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal making what was then regarded as a fantastic claim—that yellow fever were caused by insects, possibly the lowly mosquito.

Nott was not the first to suggest insects as a possible cause for yellow fever. But he was among a very tiny number over a long period of time, and he was more insistent than previous writers. Nevertheless, it would be decades before the claim was taken seriously. Yellow fever was considered akin to malaria in the sense that it was caused by bad air and poor sanitation. The notion that “malaria” was caused by “bad air” was so deeply rooted in the minds of people that it was buried in the word itself: mal-aria.

Fast forward to the Havana, Cuba of 1901. By this time researchers had all-but-proven that yellow fever and malaria were spread by mosquitos (although doubters were still more far numerous than believers). By then, William Crawford Gorgas was a military doctor and a specialist in yellow fever. Notably, he was not among those who believed in the mosquito “theory.” Nevertheless, he thought it was worth a try and used Havana as a proving ground for the theory. His campaign of eradication turned out to be astonishingly effective. Efforts to get rid of the mosquito culprits essentially eradicated yellow fever and came close to eradicating malaria in Havana.

Because of his success, Gorgas was chosen to be the sanitary officer for the Panama Canal project. Building a canal there would have been an extraordinary feat of engineering even if disease were not a problem. But, if anything, disease was the more difficult problem. During the 1880s, the French, led by Ferdinand de Lesseps (then fresh from building the longer, but otherwise less challenging, Suez Canal) had already failed in large part because of the horrific rates of yellow fever and malaria. Without Gorgas—who faced superiors who continued to doubt the mosquito theory—the Americans would have done no better.

Gorgas knew that yellow fever mosquitos (now called the aedes aegypti) lay their eggs only in fairly clean standing water and that they live only near human beings (their favorite prey). He set about getting rid of standing water wherever it could be found near humans. And it was nearly everywhere. Hospital bed legs were in pans of water to keep the ants away.  Rain barrels collected fresh water for each household, and it was commonly stored indoors in earthenware pots. Those pans, barrels and pots were often teeming with tiny larvae. His staff members went door to door getting rid of standing water or covering it with a thin layer of oil. Citronella, screens, netting and fumigation were put to use.

It worked magnificently. Yellow fever cases plummeted. After late 1906, there were no further deaths.

Malaria was harder, since the anopheles genus of mosquito is more widespread. Swamps had to be drained, brush and trees cut, and a carbolic acid larvicide spread liberally. Workers were given prophylactic quinine. Many were put to work killing individual anopheles inside buildings with swatters. While malaria was not conquered entirely, the workforce hospitalization rate for malaria went from an astonishing 9.6% in 1905 to 1.6% in 1909.

The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal 1870-1914 gives an interesting account of the building of the canal and Gorgas’ role in its success.

BTW, Josiah Clark Nott did not live long enough to see the infant he delivered help vindicate his insect theory (or even to know that Gorgas was studying to become a doctor).  That’s part of the human condition.  We don’t get to see all the direct and indirect effects we’ve had on the world.  Alas, that makes it harder to know whether you’re doing it right.

NEWS YOU CAN PURR ABOUT:  Yes, today was another record Dow.

THE AKAKA BILL, IT’S BAAACK!!: Out of nowhere, my Democratic colleagues on the U.S. Comm’n on Civil Rights have decided to attach an endorsement of the proposed Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act (formerly nicknamed “the Akaka Bill”) to an unrelated report.  The report will then be fast-tracked.

For reasons you can read about in the testimony I gave several years ago before the House Committee on Natural Resources, the Akaka bill—which would facilitate the creation of what would likely be the nation’s Indian tribe—has always been a very bad idea. During the Bush Era, the Commission’s majority recommended against it.  Fortunately, when the GOP took the House of Representatives in 2011, the bill got shelved.

The Obama Administration tried to achieve the same result through administrative action, but so far, those efforts have not yet borne fruit. It now looks like supporters of the idea of Native Hawaiian sovereignty are hoping for a blue wave that will put the bill back on the legislative agenda.

GEORGETOWN PROFESSOR SAYS WHITE MEN SHOULD DIE MISERABLE DEATHS, BE CASTRATED AND FED TO SWINE: Do you ever wonder how the world can ever be made sane again?

WHO WAS BEHIND THE FLAKE ELEVATOR INCIDENT?:  Those women apparently weren’t just random Americans who happened to oppose Kavanaugh’s nomination.

IS EARLY VOTING A BAD IDEA? John Fund argues that the Kavanaugh debate demonstrates how issues unfold after the early votes are already in.

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY, LÁSZLÓ BÍRÓ, THE INVENTOR OF THE FIRST COMMERCIALLY SUCCESSFUL BALLPOINT PEN, WAS BORN: Journalists aren’t usually great inventors, but the Hungarian-born Bíró was an exception. He noticed that the ink used on newsprint dried quickly and smudge-free, so he started working on pen that could use that ink. He patented an early design for a ballpoint pen in Paris in 1938.

As Nazism enveloped Europe, Bíró, who was Jewish, made his way to Argentina. While there, he filed another patent, this time in the United States, in the name of Bíró Pens of Argentina. The invention caught the attention of F.G. Miles, who secured a license to manufacture the pens for the Royal Air Force. The pens were economical and, unlike fountain pens, could write upside down.

After the war, Marcel Bich bought the patent. For the purpose of marketing the pen, Bich shortened his name to “Bic” so that it wouldn’t be confused by English speakers with you-know-what.

Bíró’s birthday is celebrated as Inventors’ Day in Argentina.

SOMEONE’S BEEN MESSING WITH PAPA BEAR: Do you remember the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears? Of course you do. There was Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear. And Goldilocks was the naughty girl who intruded into their happy home. But happy nuclear families are too old-fashioned. Publisher Laughing Elephant purports to present classic stories “retold for today’s children.” And apparently “today’s children” aren’t used to having a Papa Bear around, so instead the three bears are Mother Bear, Brother Bear, and Sister Bear.

“SCHOOL DISCIPLINE SHOULDN’T BE A FEDERAL ISSUE“:  Well I definitely agree.  It  shows how messed up the country is that we even have to fight about this.

DID TRUMP CHOOSE WISELY?  IT LOOKS LIKE HE DID:  This is from Kavanaugh’s letter to Senators Grassley and Feinstein:

These are smears, pure and simple.  And they debase our public discourse.  But there are also a threat to any man or woman who wishes to serve our country.  Such grotesque and obvious character assassination–if allowed to succeed–will dissuade competent and good people of all political persuasions from service.

As I told the Committee during my hearing, a federal judge must be independent, no swayed by public or political pressure.  That is the kind of judge I will always be.  I will not be intimidated into withdrawing from this process.  The coordinated effort to destroy my good name will not drive me out.  The vile threats of violence against my family will not drive me out.  That last minute character assassination will not succeed.

He’s right, of course.  This is the kind of thing that causes good people to decline to be nominated.  Indeed, it will dissuade people even if it doesn’t succeed in his case.

DISPARATE IMPACT LIABILITY COULD COST NEW YORK CITY OVER A $$BILLION$$:  If so, it’s really past time for the federal government to start explaining why all this is even constitutional. My recommendation is for the Executive Branch to start by conducting a Disparate Impact Inventory. As Justice Scalia recognized in his Ricci v. DeStefano (2009) concurrence, the issue isn’t easy. But ignoring it won’t make it any easier.  Sooner or later it has to be litigated.

IS IT TRUE THAT WITH ONLY 4.5% OF THE WORLD’S POPULATION, THE UNITED STATES ACCOUNTS FOR 31% OF ALL MASS PUBLIC SHOOTERS? According to John Lott, the answer is no. He writes: How a Botched Study Fooled the World About the U.S. Share of Mass Public Shootings: U.S. Rate is Lower than Global Average.

THE NEW COLOR LINE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS: I can’t help but believe that Heman Sweatt would be baffled by the move toward campus separatism.

MICHAEL FARADAY, THE FATHER OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING, WAS BORN 227 YEARS AGO TODAY: He was the son of a blacksmith and received only a basic formal education. But at the age of 14, he was lucky enough to apprentice to a kindly bookbinder and bookseller. Reading the books in his master’s shop was an eye-opening experience for him. In that way, he educated himself.

At the age of 20, Faraday impressed Britain’s then-leading scientist/inventor, Humphry Davy, who hired him as his scientific assistant. But there was a small catch: In addition to his scientific duties, Faraday was assigned to act as Davy’s valet while Davy and his wife were on an extended tour of Europe. This would have been a somewhat unusual arrangement. Scientific assistants were ordinarily well-educated and hence well-treated. But Davy’s wife was keen on keeping the low-born Faraday in his place. She saw to it that he would eat and sleep with the servants.

Still, that didn’t stop him from being one of the most consequential men of his generation—surpassing even Davy himself. Faraday’s experiments with electromagnetism and electrochemistry were groundbreaking. It was through his painstaking efforts that electricity became a practical source of energy that could fuel the new technologies that mushroomed around it.

As his fame grew, Faraday was called upon to give public lectures at which he tried his best to convey that beauty of the natural world as he saw it. “I am no poet,” his lecture notes read, “but if you think for yourselves, as I proceed, the facts will form a poem in your mind.”

The poets of the day–like Percy Bysshe Shelley, author of The Necessity of Atheism—were sometimes atheists. Many were convinced that the natural world as it was being revealed by scientists like Faraday was inconsistent with a belief in God. But Faraday himself saw no such inconsistency. He was a devout Christian—specifically a Sandemanian. On his deathbed, he was asked, “Have you ever pondered by yourself what will be your occupation in the next world?” His last words: “I shall be with Christ, and that is enough.”

“MICHIGAN RANKED 9^th WORST STATE FOR BULLYING”: For some reason, that headline caught my eye today. Really? Ninth worst? Not 3^rd or 23^rd? How does one even measure these things?

A little while ago, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights issued a report on the Department of Education’s intensive efforts to combat bullying in schools.  Somehow this was (and still is) viewed as an issue of “discrimination” in violation of federal law.  As usual, I filed a statement dissenting from the report.  Here’s an excerpt:

Remember when children used to say “Don’t make a federal case out of it”? In those days even fourth graders understood that not every problem is best dealt with at the federal level. These days, however, everything seems to be a federal case—even schoolyard bullies.

The point is not that bullying is unimportant. Few things are as important as ensuring that all our nation’s children can attend safe schools that are conducive to learning. But, in the absence of extraordinary circumstances, the problem can only be dealt with effectively at the local level. Individual teachers and principals backed up by active parents, school boards, school district officials, and students themselves must be in charge. They are the heroes of the story, not the Department of Education. …

One could argue that any help in this regard should be welcome. But help from the 800-pound gorilla can be worse than no help at all. And that is what anything as large and powerful as the federal government inevitably is. The fact that it may be well-meaning is nice to know, but it shouldn’t make anyone want to trust it with a china tea set.

I wonder if school children still say “Don’t make a federal case out of it.”  It might not make any sense to them anymore.

GOOD TIMES:  Dow hits new record.

NOT THAT LONG AGO: On this day in 1893, Charles and Frank Duryea road-tested the first American-made, gasoline-powered automobile on a stretch of road located in Springfield, Massachusetts.

(Others sometimes credit John William Lambert’s 1891 3-wheel Buckeye Gasoline Buggy with being America’s first, but because he never sold one–and because it was a %#* tricycle–Lambert tends not to get the same attention.)

Alas, the Duryea Motor Wagon Company never really made it big.  In part this may have been because the brothers had a falling out with each other. And in part it was because Ford had a better idea.

SAY IT AIN’T SO:  Cory Booker, 15-year-old groper?

SCHOOL DISCIPLINARY POLICIES SHOULD BE LOCAL:  And the Obama Administration’s effort to federalize those policies is both wrongheaded and contrary to law.

FORD WANTS FBI TO INVESTIGATE BEFORE SHE TESTIFIES:  Put differently:  Stall, stall, stall.

TRUMP TAKES ON THE ICC:  I’m so old that when I see that I think of the Interstate Commerce Commission.  My bad.

WILL THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S BEN CARSON JUST ADOPT A CONSERVATIVE-STYLE VERSION OF OBAMA’S AFFH POWER GRAB? Shouldn’t the federal government just let local governments run their own %^&* affairs?