Hello my friends
I'm very happy you are visiting!
Carrie Buck was the first person ordered forcibly sterilized in Virginia.
On the grounds that she was the "probable potential parent of socially inadequate offspring."
A lawsuit ensued, Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927), and stalwart white pure-bred American Harry Laughlin, who had never met Buck, gave a deposition endorsing her suitability for sterilization, calling the family members "the shiftless, ignorant, and worthless class of anti-social whites of the South".
Other scientists from the ERO testified in person.
The state won the case, which was appealed to the United States Supreme Court in 1927.
The decision of the United States Supreme Court, written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., held that the state statute permitting compulsory sterilization of the unfit, including the intellectually disabled, "for the protection and health of the state" did not violate the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Five months after the court confirmed the law, Carrie Buck was sterilized.
The Supreme Court has never expressly overturned Buck v. Bell.
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, held in high esteem in 1927 when he wrote the Court’s decision in that case.
Those who supported him cited poverty as a symptom of the shiftless, ignorant, and worthless class.
Until two years later when God stepped in and threw the country of the superior race into a devastating depression, throwing white, established lawyers and bankers into the ranks of the unemployed.
Remember “My Man Godfrey?” If not, rent it. It’s fun.
_______________________________
Tagging Today
Tuesday, October 23, 2018
My 196th consecutive posting.
Time is 12.01am
Boston’s temperature will reach a high of 56* and it will be cloudy and rainy.
Dinner is leftover chicken and mushrooms with a portion of Linguini Marinara.
___________________________
Quiz Question of the Day:
Do you know the details of Carrie Buck’s unfortunate life?
Publicity certainly did not help her.
___________________________
Hints:
____________________________
So, we were asked, you’re going to take a trip to Tokyo. Never been. How to start?
Web Meister Responds:
I’d start like I did for Florence and Tuscany.
Go straight to Amazon and type in “Tokyo Michelin Guides.”
(Michelin Guides are a series of guide books published by the French tire company Michelin for more than a century.
The term normally refers to the annually published Michelin Red Guide, the oldest European hotel and restaurant reference guide, which awards up to three Michelin stars for excellence to a select few establishments.
The acquisition or loss of a star can have dramatic effects on the success of a restaurant.
Michelin also publishes a series of general guides to cities, regions, and countries, the Green Guides.)
For the Red Guide, (the Red Guides review hotels and restaurants) only the year 2017 is offered, and there doesn’t seem to be an endless supply of them.
AND, and a big AND, I think it’s in French only.
But with or without a smattering of French, with an online language translator, a little patience, and the realization that the important information, the rankings, names, addresses, and phone numbers, are not language dependent it is still very helpful, and balls-on accurate.
Looking again at the Amazon listing for Tokyo Michelin Guides, scrolling down, I see Amazon offers an up-to-date Green Guide (Green guides review the best sights.) and the Green Guide is in English.
Immediately, I order the two books.
That’s the first step of my planning. Now I’ll wait until I receive the books.
But I can dream.
___________________________________
Short Takes: Travel Change
My trip to Tuscany has taken a quick turn due to cousin Lauren’s school schedule.
Our plans now are for a four-day trip to Florence, postponing touring the rest of Tuscany until her graduation.
Here are some images of Florence, compliments of Wikipedia:
Left:
Piazza del Duomo, Firenze
Photo on Wikipedia
Peter K Burian - Own work
Second from left:
360° view between Baptisterium and Cathedral
Photo on Wikipedia
User:MatthiasKabel - Own work
CC BY-SA 3.0view terms
Florence Baptistery and Florence Cathedral 360 panorama small.jpg
Created: 30 August 2011
Second from left:
Detail of Ghibert’s Baptistry Doors
Left:
Fra Angelico’s Coronation of the Virgin in the Uffizi
________________________________
Short Takes: Travel Prep:
So I am in possession of the Michelin Green Guide to Tuscany, which includes Florence, and is in English. I haven’t consulted it yet since I am reading Irving Stone’s “The Agony and the Ecstasy” and my intentions are to take copious notes on Michelangelo’s feelings as he created his masterpieces.
The idea is to prepare a set of notes to help us with our visits to the David and other great works.
Short Takes: City Living Exciting:
Walking through Public Garden yesterday noticing groups of people standing around, looking at their smart phones.
Here’s a gallery of these images.
Life in the city.
It’s a rich place to be.
This is a group of people drawn here by Pokemon.
What they’re doing?
It was a “Pokémon GO Boston!” event.
The site: A place where Bostonian Pokemon trainers can come together and share pictures, tips, and schedule meet-ups.
_____________________________________
Answer to Question re details of Carrie Buck’s life:
Carrie Buck (July 3, 1906 – January 28, 1983) was born in Charlottesville, Virginia, the first of three children born to Emma Buck; she was soon joined by a half-sister, Doris Buck, and a half-brother, Roy Smith.
Little is known about Emma Buck other than that she was poor and married to Frederick Buck, who shortly into their marriage abandoned her.
Emma was committed to the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded after being accused of immorality, prostitution, and having syphilis.
After her birth, Carrie Buck was placed with foster parents, John and Alice Dobbs.
She attended public school and was noted to be an average student.
Buck stopped attending school in the sixth grade, upon which point the Dobbs removed her from school in order to have her help with housework.
At 17, Buck became pregnant as a result of being raped.
Subsequently, on January 23, 1924, Buck’s foster parents had committed her to the Virginia Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-Minded on the grounds of feeblemindedness, incorrigible behavior and promiscuity.
On March 28, 1924, she gave birth to a daughter, Vivian.
Since Buck had been declared mentally incompetent to raise her child, her former foster parents adopted the baby.
Her commitment may have been due to the family's embarrassment because Carrie's pregnancy was the result of being raped by the Dobbs’s nephew.
Carrie Elizabeth Buck was the plaintiff in the United States Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell, after having been ordered to undergo compulsory sterilization for purportedly being “feeble-minded."
The surgery, carried out while Buck was an inmate of the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded, took place under the authority of the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, part of the Commonwealth of Virginia's eugenics program.
Her daughter, Vivian, was adopted by the Dobbs family, who had also raised Carrie, for a time. Under the name "Vivian Alice Elaine Dobbs," she attended the Venable Public Elementary School of Charlottesville for four terms, from September 1930 until May 1932.
Stephen Jay Gould, one of the most influential and widely read authors of popular science of his generation wrote:
She was an [average student], neither particularly outstanding nor much troubled. In those days before grade inflation, when C meant "good, 81–87" (as defined on her report card) rather than barely scraping by, Vivian Dobbs received As and Bs for deportment and Cs for all academic subjects but mathematics (which was always difficult for her, and where she scored a D) during her first term in Grade 1A, from September 1930 to January 1931. She improved during her second term in 1B, meriting an A in deportment, C in mathematics, and B in all other academic subjects; she was on the honor roll in April 1931. Promoted to 2A, she had trouble during the fall term of 1931, failing mathematics and spelling but receiving an A in deportment, B in reading, and C in writing and English. She was "retained in 2A" for the next term -- or "left back" as was formerly said, and scarcely a sign of imbecility as I remember all my buddies who suffered a similar fate. In any case, she again did well in her final term, with B in deportment, reading, and spelling, and C in writing, English, and mathematics during her last month in school. This offspring of "lewd and immoral" women excelled in deportment and performed adequately, although not brilliantly, in her academic subjects.
By all accounts Vivian, Carrie Buck’s birth-daughter, was of average intelligence, far above feeblemindedness. She died at age eight of enteric colitis, an intestinal disease.
And so, Good Morning.
We’ve talked about travel, Carrie Buck, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Tokyo, Florence, and life in the city.
Have a good day.
See you soon, my friends.
Love
Dom