“He Knew How to Die”: John Brown on the Gallows, December 2, 1859, David W. Blight, History News Network, November 30, 2009.
Saintly hero or evil monster, John Brown on the gallows has inspired and haunted American poetry, painting, fiction, and historical interpretation. A living ghost in the national psyche, he will not go away, especially in our post 9/11 world of ubiquitous political and religious violence. John Brown should and does still trouble us; his “soul” may “go marching on” in the song that bears his name, but we should never let him or his story rest too easily in the narratives we tell ourselves. History should never come so cheap as to simply make us feel good about murder in the name of vengeance for slaveholding. Yet, few at the time of his execution could resist the fact that vengeance (God’s or man’s) for more than two centuries of the destruction of the lives, the souls, the collective human future of millions of Africans and African Americans was a primal challenge in the struggle for the very existence of the experiment called the United States. 
Mr. Blight is professor of American History at Yale University, director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery and Abolition, and author of Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory.that the United States has not lived up to its commitment to stop violence as it unfolds. Its response to war crimes in three of the most serious conflict zones of the past two years, Congo, Sri Lanka and Gaza, consists of pressing for 'accountability after the crisis rather than stopping or preventing the crisis.'
d victimization are overemphasized, to the exclusion of other interests at play in a properly balanced criminal justice system. Values of fairness and due process preclude establishment of a criminal court -- or prosecution office -- solely for the purpose of representing victims' interests. Both the court and the prosecutor have the duty to represent the larger society, to serve the interest of public safety even if that interest at times conflicts with those of victims -- as, for instance, proper adherence to defense rights often does.The United States Attorney is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. As such, he is in a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law, the twofold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer. He may prosecute with earnestness and vigor-indeed, he should do so. But, while he may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones. It is as much his duty to refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate means to bring about a just one.
On this day in ...
As President Barack Obama prepares to give a speech this Tuesday on his administration's strategy going forward in Afghanistan, it's time to ask what role the cause of women in Afghanistan should play in reaching this decision. It's not evident that any of President Obama's advisors are giving any weight to the cause of women as a relevant factor in determining future strategy in Afghanistan.
On this day in ...
Unfortunately, as illustrated by IntLawGrrls' numerous writings on the subject (including Naomi's post earlier today), violence—by states, by groups, by individuals—endures as a pervasive plague in almost every society. International legal organizations, states, and the lawyers who assist them try to prevent or constrain state violence through norms on aggression and the use of force, the conduct of war or armed conflict, human rights violations, or international crimes. But many civilians also experience violence perpetrated by non-state actors (insurgent groups, paramilitary units, terrorists, and family members). Often, they are targeted, at least in part, because of their gender, age, race, religion, sexual orientation, nationality, or other status.►reparations to women for wrongs committed in contexts of peace, conflict, post-conflict and transitional justice settings;
►prevention strategies including those which promote women’s empowerment and engagement in challenging patriarchal interpretations of norms, values and rights; and
►multiple, intersecting and aggravated forms of discrimination affecting women and leading to increased levels of violence and limitation or denial of their human rights.
As I launch this Network, I call on men and boys everywhere to join us. Break the silence. When you witness violence against women and girls, do not sit back. Act. Advocate. Unite to change the practices and attitudes that incite, perpetrate and condone this violence. Violence against women and girls will not be eradicated until all of us – men and boys – refuse to tolerate it….
he cited positive actions that men are already taking, such as judges whose decisions have paved the way for fighting abuse in the workplace, networks of men who counsel male perpetrators of violence, and national leaders who have publicly committed to leading the movement of men to break the silence.
Teller of Tales: The Life of Arthur Conan Doyle, Daniel Stashower, Henry Holt Books, Inc, 472 pp., index, bibliography, illustrations, 1999, $16.00.
It is safe to say that Arthur Conan Doyle turned his life's adventure into literature. As a whaling crew's physician and adventurer, he walked on ice floes, killed seals, and nearly drowned. As a merchantman's crew physician he explored the coast of Africa and battled typhoid among the crew and within himself. As a war correspondent, as a medical volunteer in during the Boer War, as WWI front line army administration observer, he always wrote for himself, his familiar and then later turned the adventure into fiction or military history. 
Throughout his life, he felt infuriated, challenged, and intrigued by the spiritual realm. Having been sternly educated in a Jesuit school, exposed to other cultures view of death in his travels, and finding evidence of an afterlife in his own life's experiences, Doyle practiced Spiritualism. Mediums using automatic writing and channeling spirits were apart of the last three decades of Doyle's life. In part, having lost sons and nephews in WWI, his investigation of Spiritualism gave him some comfort. Spiritualism came to the fore during the 1830s and continued to be matter of scientific investigation by early psychologists through until 1930s in both Europe and America. 
The Convention says nothing specifically about protecting children from such violence when they are out on the street. But one of its overall goals, as stated in the preamble, is to ensure that children areStates Parties shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse, while in the care of parent(s), legal guardian(s) or any other person who has the care of the child.
fully prepared to live an individual life in society, and brought up in the spirit of the ideals proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations, and in particular the spirit of peace, dignity, tolerance, freedom, equality and solidarity.In a radio program here last weekend, a link was vaguely made between protecting children both from suffering violence and from becoming violent. In particular, there was a discussion of whether watching violent films or playing violent video games makes children/adolescents violent.
After the school dance
For two and a half hours
They watched her gang raped.
(Write On! is an occasional item about notable calls for papers.) Three units at Indiana University, Bloomington -- the Maurer School of Law, the Russian and East European Institute, and the Center for Western European Studies-- are seeking papers from scholars of international criminal law, transitional justice, or the former Yugoslavia for a conference entitled "The Milosevic Trial: An Autopsy," to be held February 18-21, 2010. Papers should address issues related to the trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia of the former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic (below right) -- a trial that, as we've posted, ended with his death in 2005 -- or to the trial's impact on the former Yugoslavia, on international criminal law, or on transition justice. Paper topics should fall within the themes of conference:The trial's significance and legacy are strongly contested; the conference will examine both the causes of the trial's termination and its implications for post-conflict justice. Drawing on major trial participants, experts on the former Yugoslavia, and international criminal law scholars who have written on the trial, the conference will address issues such as:
► the proper role of historical truth-telling in war crimes trials;
► measuring the impact of trials;
► prosecutorial and judicial strategy in designing trials; and
► access to trial archives.
On this day in ...The woman dubbed as the Iron Lady during her premiership made her last tearful speech as the leader of the country from the doorstep of Number 10.She was, of course, Margaret Thatcher, shown here with her political ally from across the pond, U.S. President Ronald Reagan. (photo credit) A Tory who ruled for nearly a dozen years, Thatcher's the 1st and only woman to have been the Prime Minister of Britain.
On Wednesday, UNAIDS and the World Health Organization released a report on the AIDS epidemic. Much of the news is grim: in 2008, over 33 million people worldwide were living with HIV, nearly 3 million people were newly infected with HIV, and an estimated 2 million people died of AIDS, including nearly 300,000 children under the age of 15. While these numbers are of great concern, they represent a continuing decline in new HIV infections and HIV-related mortality. New HIV infections were 30% lower than at the epidemic's peak in 1996, and HIV-related deaths were 10% lower than at their peak in 2004. The number of children newly infected with HIV has dropped by nearly 20% since 2001, in part due to the significant increase in services to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission (from 10% in 2004 to 45% in 2008).
On this day in ...I lived till within a few days in a house where I kept my own apartments perfectly in the style of a miserable old bachelor without any mixture of female society. I now have rooms in the house of a very accomplished, a very sensible, and I believe a very amiable lady whose temper, very contrary to the general character of her country women, is domestic and who generally sits with us two or three hours in the afternoon.
The woman who'd so bedazzled Marshall, then 42, was Reine-Philiberte de Villette (left), a 30-year-old widow with 2 children. As a girl she "had been destined for a convent" because of her family's impoverishment; instead, she'd been adopted and brought up by the aged French philosopher Voltaire. As detailed in this French account of her life, following the death of the Marquis de Villette, whom she'd married by arrangement of Voltaire, Madame de Villette became a society woman. Her salon afforded an entrée into French circles for diplomats from the new American republic -- among them Marshall, who 4 years after writing this letter would become Chief Justice of the United States. 
Colonel Miles Quaritch played by Stephen Lang (Stonewall Jackson in Gods and Generals, George Pickett in Gettysburg) invades another planet in the film Avatar which is being release in late December. Avatar is written and directed by James Cameron, writer and director of Titanic. Avatar is a story set in the future and tells of Jake, a paraplegic war veteran, who is sent to Pandora a planet not close to Earth. Pandora is inhabited by the Na'vi, a humanoid race with their its language and culture. 
Sent deep into Pandora's jungles as a scout for the soldiers that will follow, Jake encounters many of Pandora's beauties and dangers. There he meets a young Navi female, Neytiri, whose beauty is only matched by her ferocity in battle. Over time, Jake integrates himself into Neytiri's clan, and begins to fall in love with her. As a result, Jake finds himself caught between the military-industrial forces of Earth, and the Navi, forcing him to choose sides in an epic battle that will decide the fate of an entire world. 
On this day in ...During the war, she wore trousers under her skirt, a man's uniform jacket and two pistols. As an early women's rights advocate, particularly for dress reform, she was arrested many times after the war for wearing men's clothes, including wing collar, bow tie and top hat.
Post-hoc constitutional review is finally coming to France.
Freedom Rising: Washington in the Civil War, Ernest B. Furgurson, Vintage, 2008, 496 pp. $16.00 and Ashes of Glory: Richmond at War, Ernest B. Furgurson, Vintage, 2008, 464 pp. $16.00 
In the second of the two books, Ashes of Glory, Furgurson recounts a lurid and desperate tale of a proud community under the pervasive duress of economic hardship, shortages of essential items, and, later, a long military siege. With eloquence and sympathy, the author constructed a portrait of a community akin to a venerated dowager: in her youth a vibrant patrician with the world at her feet; at the close of her life, robbed of her riches, keepsakes, and memories; and, through it all, retained her elemental poise. More than the cause of independence, it is Richmond's pride in her traditions and her history that is at the heart of her survival, even after her citizens faced starvation and her buildings were reduced to rubble. Again, through it all the necessary business of both a national and state capital continued. 
A new statue of President Abraham Lincoln will greet visitors to the Gettysburg National Military Park. The life-sized bronze statue is situated at the front of the museum and visitor center, and is the creation of of Ivan Schwartz of Brooklyn, New York. It was unveiled today, on the anniversary of his famous speech, the Gettysburg Address. "It seems like the right moment to do this. I don't know about the past, and why it hasn't happened before, but it seems like the correct moment now," says Ivan schwartz, sculptor. The statue is a gift from philanthropist Robert H. Smith. His family's foundation funds an education initiative that focuses on Abraham Lincoln. 
Members of the public received their first look at a new Lincoln sculpture at the main entrance to the Gettysburg National Military Park Museum and Visitor Center on Thursday, Nov. 19, Dedication Day. The life-sized bronze sculpture was created by Ivan Schwartz, founder and director of StudioEIS of Brooklyn, N.Y. The Lincoln sculpture was made possible by a generous gift from philanthropist Robert H. Smith. 
There's a tendency to romanticize our foremothers in what's known as the 1st wave of feminism. Back then, sometimes, they were called by the diminutive term "suffragettes"; they're known today, more often, as "suffragists."Those of the ardent suffragists who talk loud and do little are to be permitted to purchase immunity from the long hike from New York to Washington only by hiring a substitute and paying her expenses.
The decision to allow immunity-purchase was made by "Gen. Rosalie Jones," shown standing in the crossing-the-Delaware caricature at right (credit), at the request of one "Mrs. Travis Cochran, a wealthy woman of this city, who is interested in 'the cause,'" The Times wrote from Philadelphia, the "city" of dispatch. (One suspects the latter part of this item refers to the "well-connected" Mary Peppers Cochran.)Our daughters' daughters will adore us and they'll sing in grateful chorus, 'Well done, sister suffragettes.'
The script says otherwise, however; the London banker's wife is continually out the door, on her way to a suffrage meeting, leaving wee Jane and Michael in the care of ... whomever.
But let's not judge our 1st-wave foremothers too harshly.
After all, in a similar vein, a lot of Unionist men paid $300 each to buy their way out of service in America's Civil War -- men like Jay Gould, Philip Armour, Andrew Carnegie, James Mellon, J.P. Morgan, and John D. Rockefeller. The choice freed each to become a human engine of America's industrial and financial revolution.
And their Mrs.?
