Annual Meeting Update

Only three months remain until the SEG International Exposition and 89th Annual Meeting, taking place 15–20 September in San Antonio, Texas. Annual Meeting Steering Committee Chair Glenn Winters and I are striving to make this meeting more participatory for all attendees and for all levels of experience and expertise. The committee has shortened the oral presentations by a half day. There will be no oral presentations Thursday morning, which will allow postconvention workshops to start earlier and make the schedule more efficient.

Introduction

At 7.30 a.m. on Monday, 12 March 1888, the mortal remains of the Revd Isaac Nelson were taken from his residence at Sugarfield House in Belfast to the nearby Shankill Graveyard and deposited in the family burying-ground. He had died either the previous Wednesday night (7 March) or in the early hours of Thursday morning (8 March). Nelson had suffered from heart disease for some years, a condition that was worsened by a severe fall several weeks before his death. Even though he had been a larger-than-life figure in Victorian Belfast, Nelson’s funeral was a strictly private affair. His brother William, his sister Elizabeth, a few intimate friends from his former Presbyterian congregation at Donegall Street, and the Revds James Martin, George Shaw, George Magill, and William Johnston attended the funeral. Upon the burial of Nelson’s body, the ...

Short Story

On Thursday morning he walked again from his apartment in Palais Lutetia to the Villa Isola Bella. The quickest way was the low road through the tunnel and past the marina, but he preferred the climb up to the old cemetery where William Webb Ellis was buried, and then the stroll along the Garavan boulevard, past the Pian olive grove park with hunched, ancient trees set against the blue sea, on to the ornate villas of Garavan, some lacking love, but all with wonderful faded colours of green, yellow and rose. He walked slowly because of the heat, and carried the small backpack from his hand, rather than having it in contact with his shirt. On his way home he would buy the few supermarket items that are all a guy living on his own needs....

The Old Continent a Town, with the Union Its City Hall

On Thursday morning February 2nd, 1653, New York came into being as a city. From a dependent trading outpost run by the Dutch West Indies Company, it turned itself into a self-governing political community. Seven local magistrates went into the fort, swore an oath of service to the Dutch States General and said a prayer. Then they signed a municipal charter and conducted their first piece of business, putting their signatures to a statement ‘herewith [to] inform everybody that they shall hold their regular meetings in the house hitherto called the City Tavern, henceforth the City Hall, on Monday mornings from 9 o'clock, to hear all questions of difference between litigants and decide them as best they can.’

FIRE ALARMS, JURIES, AND MORAL JUDGMENT

It's nearly 10:00 AM on a Thursday morning and the courtroom is filled with more than 100 members of the jury pool. Court officials, state police officers, and defendants line the halls waiting to be called for pre-trial conferences and for jury selection to begin, then the fire alarm sounds. There is no obvious evidence of fire, no smoke, no shouts, and no other warnings. At the same time, no one announces that there is a fire drill in progress, that the alarm is merely being tested, or that the alarm was pulled by accident. Sitting in the court room, what would you do? And, more importantly, why would you do it? What goes through your head when you hear the alarm?