I recently got a copy of a newly-published climbing guide to my neighborhood. Most of the routes listed in the book were developed in the time I've lived here, making this not just another guidebook to me but also a history of a very familiar time and place.

Whereas previous guidebooks from this publisher were printed in Canada, this one was printed in Hong Kong. It was subject to the USA's increased tariffs but at a lesser rate than most imports from China because it qualified as educational material.

The publisher graciously brought me a copy the day he received them. "It's sewn," he said when he saw me look at the binding. He immediately knew what I was looking for, which reminded me of how you know a woodworker is checking for dovetail joints when they pull out a drawer to look at it.

I live about ten miles south of Manzanar, the site of a concentration camp where over 10,000 Americans of Japanese descent were held during World War II. About two‑thirds of the detainees were US‑born citizens. Korematsu v. United States, which upheld their detention, is often cited as one of the worst Supreme Court decisions of all time.

A building that was a high school auditorium at Manzanar is now a visitor center with exhibits about the history of internment of Japanese Americans. Pursuant to a recent Executive Order, the visitor center now displays this notice (highlighting mine):
From a recent CBS News report:

The imprisonment of innocent Americans is the entire purpose of the monument, so is it really possible to have a site like Manzanar and not have some negative history assigned to it?

"I don't think so. I don't think it's possible," said Cal State East Bay Ethnic Studies Professor Dr. Nicholas Baham. "But at the same time, the understanding of the things that we've done is not, in and of itself, a negative process. It is not a process that is designed to make people feel bad about being American. It's a process that's designed to make us better as Americans."

Baham said he is also disturbed by the fact that the Parks Service can no longer even see the comments that the people are submitting.

"I don't know what kind of system that sets up," he said. "Other than one that creates a sense of distrust between visitors to the park, American citizens, and people who work at the park."

The guy who had my house before me was a WWII veteran and hated that Manzanar had become, as he saw it, a memorial to the enemy.

My dad was also a WWII veteran but he didn't feel that way. I took him to Manzanar and he had no problem with how the exhibits there presented the history.

From a 2008 interview with one of my favorite composers of music for film and television:

interviewer:	Did you have any hobbies growing up or was music your primary focus?
Lalo Schifrin:	Well, my main hobby is silence.

Lalo Schifrin studied with (among others) Oliver Messiaen. A theme ("The Plot") he wrote for many of the dialogue‑free scenes in Mission: Impossible uses the second of Messiaen's modes of limited transposition, a.k.a. the octatonic scale.

Earlier this week, a lawyer arguing at an appeals court in Colorado accidentally addressed a judge as... well, I don't want to spoil it.
See the (short) video here.

I served on a jury last week and through into today. We decided a civil case about a real estate dispute. It was easy for us to find in favor of the plaintiff but hard to decide dollar values to award for various damages (economic, punitive, ...). We did reach enough of a consensus on damages to render a verdict (only 9 out of 12 jurors have to agree in a civil trial).

The defendant had introduced a document purported to be a signed agreement between her and her (now deceased) aunt. An expert witness said the document was fake and the jury concurred. I was reminded of a case I followed some years ago. My personal opinion: it's really not OK to concoct a document and misrepresent it in legal proceedings.

This was my first time serving on a jury. It was interesting to see the group dynamics of twelve people deciding a case.

Unrelated to the trial I served on, a man and woman came to the courthouse to elope on Friday. They stood before a county official, outdoors on the steps by the front door. I happened to be walking past just as they took their marriage vows.

The 103‑year‑old courthouse is one of the nicest buildings in the valley.

Seymour Cray, talking about having used a circular slide rule early in his career:

I had the 10-inch model. Now that's as big as circular slide rules were made, so I had the very top of the line in computing capability. Now many of you are probably not familiar with slide rules. But I can tell you that if you had a circular one, you had some social problems in college.