The tree is up.

Kaunas, Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, about 1959. The family of my Kaunas Cousin prepares for the New Year celebration.

Thanks to my Kaunas Cousin for making this photo available to us.

Permit

Kaunas, Lithuania, August 3, 1927. The Administrator of the city of Kaunas and surrounding areas issued this permit to the American Consul to Lithuania. The document states, "PERMIT. With this I [the Kaunas Administrator] allow America's Consul Mr. [Robert Wayne] Heingartner, to keep a shooting revolver gun. This permit will be in effect until January 1, 1928."

Thanks to the Consul's Granddaughter for making this photo available to us.

"Lap dancing is a vague phrase: it covers a lot of sins."

News from the home town: The Missionary Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo amend their lawsuit against their neighbor, the "Allure" strip club.

Gray-Wolf Reunion

Brookfield Zoo, December 1975. The Endangered Species Act protected gray wolves; then, the zoo was one of the few places to see them.

Our Christmas Cards: Good-Intentions Edition

Madison, Wisconsin, December 1998. We skipped another year of sending photo cards. Our reason in 1998: I was in my third year of law school, and I didn't get organized in time to prepare the mailings. We did, however, select an image we thought about using for the greetings.

Wheelie Ban

Venice will fine tourists who drag wheeled suitcases through the city's paved walkways and historic bridges.

"Long-suffering Venetians will be exempt from the new law and will be free to clunk their noisy suitcases up and down the canal banks."

(I would have appreciated a ban against the noisy luggage when I was in law school.)

Assumption of Risk

Circus World Museum, Baraboo, Wisconsin, July 9, 2014. Read this before you ride a pony.

"The choice to leave academia does not have to mean life as a barista."

"So why are humanities Ph.D.s outside academia so invisible? One reason is that within academic departments there is a culture of stigmatizing doctoral candidates who take non-academic posts, making them less inclined to stick around and contribute to debates about the future of the field."

A professor told me if my dissertation were dull, then I would work at an insurance company.

"When you say 'photocopying machine,' what do you mean?"

A dramatization of a deposition.

Bankers' Hours

Swiss Air Force declines to scramble a hijacked aircraft "because the incident occurred outside normal office hours."

The "Citizenship Exception"

Lithuania grants citizenship to an American ice dancer. President Dalia Grybauskaitė's decree makes the skater, Isabella Tobias, eligible to compete for Team Lithuania with her partner, Deividas Stagniūnas, at the Sochi Olympic Games.

"Under existing laws, citizenship by exception can be granted by the president to individuals for special merits, given that they have been integrated with the Lithuanian society."

Cancer, Genetic Testing, and Religious Law

"Ashkenazi Jewish women are five times more likely than the general population to have gene mutations that greatly increase the risk of breast and ovarian cancers.

Does Jewish law obligate them to be tested for the mutations?"

Sunday Dinner, Student Style

People who attended Northwestern University in the 1970s likely remember "Yesterday's." The restaurant stood on Sherman Avenue, close to the sorority quad, Willard Hall, and my dorm.

Evanston, Illinois, is home to the Women's Christian Temperance Union.* When I lived there, the city was essentially dry. There were no liquor store in town; however, the liquor store on Howard Street, on the Chicago border, would deliver to dorm rooms. There were only two ways to buy a drink in Evanston itself: (1) go to one of the the two or three hotels in town. Hotels had a municipal exemption from the blue laws because the city did not want to turn away out-of-town visitors; or (2) buy dinner at a restaurant that carried a limited liquor license. The city granted licenses to sell beer and wine in downtown restaurants, but patrons could buy the beverages only if they ordered a "meal."

Illinois law at that time allowed 18-year-olds to buy beer and wine. Almost everyone on campus therefore could drink legally. Students were good at persuading restaurant servers about what constituted a "meal" under the beverage laws. If you ordered something that wasn't on the appetizer menu, then the restaurant often allowed you to buy a beer or a glass of wine.

*One dorm, situated near the WCTU, offered T-Shirts for its residents that read, "We're Behind the WTCU."

Evanston, Illinois, February 1, 1978. We ate chili at Yesterday's on many Sunday evenings, when the university food service did not offer dinner.

"No, you are trampling my field, go away."

Richard Branson's hot air balloon touches down in a field near Kaunas,* and the farmer refuses to give Branson a taste of fresh milk. 

"You cannot drink the milk right in the field. Additionally, calves were just born, cows are still giving first milk; therefore, they were still bleeding. These people are not farmers, they do not even check. Cows’ bottoms… I can show you the calves[.]"

 

Here in Wisconsin, we know raw milk is no laughing matter.

 

*Branson wrote about his trip to Lithuania here.

"Oh, they want to knit. They just don't know they want to knit."

Inmates who knit.

"This is like I'm at Starbuck's—without the coffee."

Civic Literacy Exam

This isn't new, but I had funny taking it today.

UPDATE: "Fun," not "funny." Ha ha! On a "literacy" quiz.

"Citizenship may be granted by exception to foreign citizens who have undisputable merits to the Lithuanian state, have integrated with the Lithuanian society and share constant factual connections with Lithuania."

Ice dancer denied Lithuanian citizenship.

This storm is big enough to have a name.

Draco is aiming for the Midwest.

What do you think of when you read the name, "Draco?" Do you picture a dragon because you studied Latin? Or do you jump to Greece because you are an historian? Or do you turn to law because Draco was the first "lawgiver?" Or do you combine all three reasons and pop right to "Draconian?"

The weatherfolk probably had fun naming the first, named blizzard. Why did they skip the alphabetical process used for hurricanes?

Verona, Wisconsin, December 2009. We are ready for the big one.