Today in Supreme Court History: July 28, 1880

7/28/1880: San Francisco prohibits operation of laundires in wood buildings, "without having first obtained the consent of the board of supervisors." The Supreme Court found this ordinance unconstitutional in Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886).

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

Fare v. Michael C., 439 U.S. 1310 (decided July 28, 1978): Rehnquist grants stay of California Supreme Court’s order as to minor being questioned as to a murder who asked for his probation officer (the California court held that any questioning past that point was a violation of Miranda); federal issue was involved and the criminal case could not continue unless it was resolved (the Court ended up reversing the California holding, 442 U.S. 707, 1979)

[Dan Schiavetta]

today’s movie review: Emma, 1996

. . . or was it “Pride and Prejudice”? Or “Sense and Sensibility”?

At no point in any one of these stories is anyone caught being employed, or trying to find employment, or even contemplating it. In the rare case of possible destitution, the remedy is to find someone well-off to marry.

I read “Emma” because it was on my mother’s bookshelf. This is the one with Mr. Darcy and Emma as a would-be matchmaker. Is this the one where the Alan Cumming character, playing a parson, having been rebuffed by one woman, proposes marriage to another five minutes later? Was masturbation really that off the table?

One is about as likely to find a steamy sex scene in Austen as in Dickens, but at least in Dickens you find women doing other things. Some are earning income by honest work, and not all are “working poor”. I can’t believe that in Dickens, writing only 30 years later, society had changed that much.

One notes the relative absence of servants, though they had to exist, to set the scene. In the archery practice bit with Mr. Darcy, for example. I don’t remember any instance of a servant being a character in any of these novels, aside from opening doors to let people in.

There are many amusing and interesting things in these movies. The germophobic father. (“Emma”, I think.) The older sister who sees only the best in people. (“Pride and Prejudice”) The good-natured, down-to-earth father who receives a letter from the parson urging people to avoid someone (I forget who) who has fallen on hard times. (“Sounds like good Christian charity,” the father notes.) I get a kick out of Miss Bates — “well, my friends say so!” when she’s complimented — and her attempts to keep up the better-off characters, and feels her hurt when she’s insulted.

Yet this is an enclosed world, a toy world. The beginning of one of these movies (“Emma”?) shows a twirling blue globe, but when it stops twirling we see the only land mass is the British Isles. And an embroidery of the households in the area, introducing the main characters I suppose, but it’s like something a 7-year-old would create with crayons.

I assume Austen wrote like this because that's all she knew. I get the same feeling from her that I do from Therese of Lisieux, the “Little Flower of Jesus”, a Catholic saint who lived a sheltered life and died of tuberculosis in 1897 in a convent at age 24. She was undeniably bright but one wonders what she would have been like, how differently she might have written, if she had had wider experiences, maybe some real adversity, where she had to stand up and fight. She probably would not have ended up a saint — the Church, like with practically all females, honors them when they show submission, repentance, forgiveness, and are “little”, i.e., not a threat.

(Perhaps someone more conversant with these novels can supply the specifications or corrections.)

[SRG]

ChatGPT does a fair Jane Austen impression.

[Krayt]

Someone had to be first in writings we might now consider stereotypical of a genre. It wasn’t necessarily so back then.

Romance without the bodice ripping. A fantasy of well to do young women. Yes, finding a husband might as well have been their job.

Go watch Catherine Called Birdy for a modern style of a young, intelligent, independent, creative young woman who still stuggles with being married off to various pigs. Is the only difference they're grotesque pigs as per modern narratives assert they must be, and not dreamboats as a romance fantasy suggests?

[Dan Schiavetta]

Thanks. Looks interesting.

As does the lead actress. She looks like paintings of the era.

(This was perhaps more true of girls than boys, but it was sometimes true of boys also. “But she’s got huge — tracts of land!!”)

For another take on a feisty survivor girl, “Moll Flanders” (though hard to read -- a novel consisting of one long chapter).

[Bob from Ohio]

"In the rare case of possible destitution, the remedy is to find someone well-off to marry."

A woman of that class would [could really] only accept employment as a governess or a lady's companion. So marriage was the better option.

[Magister]

Why the popularity of such films and books? Escapism to a time with different issues, and avoiding the more uncomfortable ones of that day such as the poorhouses in Dickens? Maybe it provides a setting where broken engagements and forbidden love have vast social implications; in a modern setting, people would just end up in bed together. Perhaps even that women had so few options that their struggles as underdogs make for good drama.

Today's review has motivated me to seek out "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" which I did not see when it came out.

[Nige]

The books are incredibly well written and extremely funny.

[Magister]

I guess my comment is more directed at period films, and not just Jane Austen adaptations. I haven't read any of her books, although I expect that they would not have remained popular if they weren't well written.

Please note I want to see the parody with zombies because Jane Austen characters deserve to have meaningful lives beyond their sheltered world and not just because I like zombie movies.

[Nige]

They're extremely popular, out of copyright and can attract fairly presitgious talent.

[Sarcastr0]

The execution more than the setting/plot/stakes.

I was not a huge Jane Austin guy but Ta-Nehisi Coates makes me want to take another look.

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/02/jane-austen-just-dissed-you/71437/

[wolfefan]

IIRC Nero Wolfe re-reads an Austen book - I think Pride and Prejudice - every year. Austen was the author who demonstrated to Wolfe that women could indeed be good writers.

[ducksalad]

“One notes the relative absence of servants, though they had to exist, to set the scene. In the archery practice bit with Mr. Darcy, for example.”

The archery practice wasn’t in the book (Pride and Prejudice) as far as I can remember. 20th century filmmakers made it up.

“At no point in any one of these stories is anyone caught being employed, or trying to find employment, or even contemplating it. ”

Of course you’re correct that the books are primarily about landed gentry, but this is a bit of an exaggeration, unless your definition of employment is coveralls, time cards, and paid by the hour. Emma has Jane Fairfax applying for a governess position, Persuasion has Ms. Smith disabled, poor, and earning money by knitting, among others. On the male side there’s no shortage of characters working as curates or military officers and definitely needing the money. A main plot element in Persuasion is Wentworth waiting to save enough money as a naval officer to be able to marry.

[Dan Schiavetta]

The archery scene was in “Emma” (the movie) though I don’t remember it in the book. Archery must have been on the far side of adventurosity as far as what women were expected to learn to do. Often it was music (in the movie “Pride and Prejudice” one of the sisters is such a bad singer that the dogs outside start howling!).

I haven’t read “Persuasion”.

However thank you for pointing out the exceptions. My statement was too broad. (Note that when my mother and I watched "Pride and Prejudice" we had just seen "The Guns of Navarone".)

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"At no point in any one of these stories is anyone caught being employed, or trying to find employment, or even contemplating it."

Heh heh.

But Austen tried to work as a writer, and Wikipedia suggests at least some of her books brought her some dough.

[SMP0328]

7/28/1880: San Francisco prohibits operation of [laundries] in wood buildings, "without having first obtained the consent of the board of supervisors." The Supreme Court found this ordinance unconstitutional in Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886).

Way to leave out the most important parts. San Francisco's Board of Supervisors always granted consent when requested by a White-owned laundry business, but always rejected such requests by Chinese owned ones. This case established that a law could be Unconstitutionally applied without it being facially Unconstitutional. In this case, the ordinance's applications violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

[Michael Ejercito]

Under Yick Wo's logic, may-issue handgun permit systems could be struck down as unconstitutional.

[Dilan Esper]

I think May Issue, at least in the arbitrary way you posit it, is already unconstitutional under Bruen. We'll see where the Court goes on what conditions a government can attach to Shall Issue, but at least it has to be structured as "if you meet X, Y, and Z objective criteria, you get your permit".

[not guilty]

If a may-issue handgun permit system were administered such that applications submitted by white persons were routinely granted while applications submitted by nonwhite persons were routinely denied, I can see where the equal protection reasoning of Yick Wo would apply.

Absent that kind of invidious discrimination, not so much.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Illegal Chinese Biolab discovered in California.

https://www.yourcentralvalley.com/news/local-news/ive-never-seen-anything-like-this-illegal-medical-lab-discovered-in-reedley/

Two questions come to mind:

1.) How much of a refund do you think Hunter/Joe are going to have to give to the CCP?

2.) How hard do you think the Federals are working to keep this story under wraps to protect the CCP’s image in America (you know, like they did with the illegal Chinese spy balloons)?

[Magister]

Your link makes no mention of Chinese involvement; the company running it is apparently Prestige Biotech, a Nevada company. Where is the evidence for a connection to China?

(Wasn't it the Trump administration covering up Chinese spy balloons?)

[BravoCharlieDelta]

https://midvalleytimes.com/article/news/2023/07/25/investigation-on-reedley-building-uncovers-bio-health-hazards/

The Chinese Spy Balloon controversy happened in 2023, why would you think it happened three or four years ago? Did I miss some spy balloon happenings during COVID?

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/why-us-delayed-china-sanctions-after-shooting-down-spy-balloon-2023-05-11/

“Instead, the U.S. State Department held back human rights-related sanctions, export controls and other sensitive actions to try to limit damage to the U.S.-China relationship, according to four sources with direct knowledge of U.S. policy, as well as internal emails seen by Reuters.”

[Magister]

Turned out the Trump administration missed some spy balloons, and apparently you did too.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/05/politics/chinese-spy-balloons-trump-administration/index.html

Good thing for Trump that he won't have to return the money he actually got from the Chinese, since he'll need it to hire lawyers (can't imagine any decent lawyer is going to represent him without being paid up front).
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2020/10/23/forbes-estimates-china-paid-trump-at-least-54-million-since-he-took-office-via-mysterious-trump-tower-lease/?sh=7566ba0aed11

[Mr. Bumble]

They did a movie about VC commenters Nige and SarcastrO?

[Nige]

Mr Bumble, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex him, until he encountered Nige and Saracstro commenting on a blog.

[Drewski]

Honestly, that's a pretty creepy comment.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Thanks

[Dan Schiavetta]

You would get a kick out of this

https://medium.com/@ahenryernst/fear-and-loathing-and-sensibility-132eddc1fe75

[BrotherMovesOn]

Don't forget terribly effeminate.
And nothing to add, ever.
"sad old man, defeated by life."

[Nige]

Most agreeable, Mr Captcrisis.

[Nige]

I think you've wandered into a Thomas Hardy novel.

[Dan Schiavetta]

I think he's quoting from the teleplay description of Juror #9.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Why did I bother providing links when I knew the the dunces around here don't know how to click links much less read words?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

So now you want me to read the links, digest them down to tiny little chunks and spoon fed them to you like a little baby?

Is that what you want, Baby Bird? You want Momma Bird to digest it for you and regurgitate it back into your tiny little bird brain?

[Nige]

The rural juror?

[BrotherMovesOn]

No, I would never compare Bumble with juror #9.

[Nige]

Voltage!

[Dan Schiavetta]

OK -- I get it.

[Nige]

Silas Marner!