Contemporary sculpturist comments on Ukraine war

Lakenen considers the war in Ukraine in this 2022 sculpture.

A couple of weeks ago, I visited artist Tom Lakenen's Lakenenland, a sculpture park in the Marquette area of Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

I'm a sucker for an outdoor art installation, and Lakenen's work does not disappoint. I only had a couple of hours, but I could have spent the day exploring the inviting woodsy trails.

Composed of "junk," Lakenen's art in its very existence speaks to capitalist materialism and environmental sustainability. About and even besides such themes, Lakenen has a lot to say, and much of it resonates with the ordinary American, especially in terms of economic frustrations. I could not help but notice that vehicles in the parking lot boasted bumper stickers of both "red" and "blue" American political extremes. But insofar as any visitors expressed outrage, it was along with the artist, not at him.

Lakenen is always adding new pieces. I was especially moved by his 2022 work on the war in Ukraine. Above and below, I share some images of that piece. I thank Tom Lakenen for sharing his art with visitors. All photos by RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, with no claim to underlying sculptural works, presumed © Tom Lakenen.

Curators decry parody souvenirs, claim quasi-copyright

D 'n' me at the Accademia in June.
RJ Peltz-Steele CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0

David's genitals are all the rage in Florentine touristic fashion, and some observers see a kind of intellectual property (IP) problem.

Italian law has pioneered the protection of cultural heritage since the 15th century (Mannoni), centuries before Italian unification. Medici rulers limited the export of art in the 19th century (Calabi). In the 20th century, a 1909 law asserted a public interest in protecting items "at least 50 years old and 'of historical, archaeological, paleo-anthropological interest'" (N.Y. Times).

Italy continued to lead in protective legal measures in modern times. A public responsibility to safeguard the national patrimony was enshrined in the post-war constitution in 1948 and became the basis of a "complex public organization" (Settis). According to Giambrone Law, Italy was the first nation to have a police division specially assigned to protect cultural heritage. Italy embraced a 2022 European treaty on cultural protection with aggressive amendments to domestic criminal law (LoC). Woe be to the Kazakh tourist who carved his initials into a Pompeii wall this summer (e.g., Smithsonian).

Italian legal protection has extended beyond the physical. A 2004 code of cultural heritage limited visual reproductions of national patrimony without prior approval by the controlling institution and payment of a fee to the institution. 

That measure caused more than a little hand-wringing in copyright circles, as the law seemed to reclaim art from the public domain. The Italian Ministry of Culture doubled down with regulations in 2023, even as the EU moved to strengthen the single-market IP strategy.

Probably needless to say, images of famous works of Italian art are sold widely, in Italy and elsewhere, on everything from frameable prints to refrigerator magnets. Enforcement of the cultural heritage law is thin on the ground, but the government has scored some significant wins against high-profile violators.

A recent AP News story by Coleen Barry described the latest outbreak of this IP-vs.-free-speech conflict, this time over images of David. Cecilie Hollberg, director of the Galleria dell’Accademia, where David resides, has decried vendors who profit from "debase[ment]" of David's image.

Aprons for sale, 2010.
Willem via Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0

I saw David in late June. It was the second time I visited him; my first visit was in 1996. I don't well remember Florence from that long ago. But this time I surely was surprised by the quantity and variety of David gear available for sale on the streets around the Accademia, especially the sort of gear that Hollberg is talking about. David has become a character in every variety of indecent meme and crude joke about drinking and sex. David's penis is a favorite outtake.

These uses of David's image especially implicate moral rights in copyright law. Moral rights aim to protect the dignity of creators against distasteful uses and associations. However, as such, moral rights typically end with the life of the creator. Michelangelo died in 1564. The theory behind the cultural heritage code is indicated by the very word "patrimony": that there is a kind of inherited public ownership of classical works, thus entitling them to ongoing moral protection.

Copyright in U.S. law and in the common law tradition in the 20th century was slow to recognize moral rights, which have a storied history in continental law, especially in France and in the civil law tradition. But common law countries came around, at least most of the way. Broader recognition of moral rights was motivated principally by treaty obligations seeking to harmonize copyright. A secondary motivation might have been a proliferation of offensiveness in the multimedia age.

Hollberg has been the complainant behind multiple enforcement actions. Barry reported: "At Hollberg's behest, the state's attorney office in Florence has launched a series of court cases invoking Italy's landmark cultural heritage code .... The Accademia has won hundreds of thousands of euros in damages since 2017, Hollberg said." Not a bad side hustle.

David's shapely backside is not to be underestimated.
RJ Peltz-Steele CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0

EU regulators are looking into the legal conflict between free artistic expression and protection of cultural heritage, Barry wrote. My inclination to classical liberalism puts a thumb on the scale for me in favor of the commercial appropriators. I'm uncomfortable with inroads on the public domain. There already is excessive such impingement on creative freedom: inter alia, abusively lengthy copyright terms, chaos around orphan works, prophylactic notice and take-down, and publisher-defined fair use. The idea of removing permissible uses from the public domain is antithetical to liberal norms.

At the same time, I get the frustration of authorities. The average family visiting the dignified Accademia, eager to induce a much-needed appreciation for history and art in the youngest generation, first must navigate the cultural gutter.

Trademark feud centers on unsolved double murder

Lizzie Borden House, left; Miss Lizzie's Coffee, right.

A museum and a coffee shop are locked in trademark litigation over the name of an heiress accused of an infamous double murder. (All photos by RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.)

Last year, Williamsburg, Va.-based US Ghost Adventures, owner-operator of the Lizzie Borden House and Museum in Fall River, Mass., sued Miss Lizzie's Coffee and its owner-operator, Joseph M. Pereira. The coffee shop opened in a house next door to the museum on Second Street in Fall River. US Ghost Adventures accused Miss Lizzie's of infringing on its trademark in "Lizzie Borden" and profiting from consumer confusion over the coffee shop's ownership.

In October, the federal district court, per Judge Leo T. Sorokin, denied the plaintiff a preliminary injunction. US Ghost Adventures appealed, and the matter is now pending in the First Circuit.

In 1892, Lizzie Borden was tried and acquitted of the axe murders of her father and stepmother. The brutality of the killings and the gender of the accused summed a blockbuster news event in the 1890s—not coincidentally, the pyrite age of yellow journalism—and the public followed the criminal trial breathlessly. No one ever was convicted of the crime, and Borden lived the remainder of her life under a cloud in Fall River social circles. The case has been a font of endless speculation in the popular culture, inspiring books, articles, films, TV shows, video games, songs, and nursery rhymes.

Lizzie Borden House and Museum

Opened to the public in 1996, the Lizzie Borden House and Museum, where the murders occurred and Lizzie lived at the time, features artifacts from the Bordens' life and the crime. The bed-and-breakfast part of the business capitalizes on the reputation of the property as haunted.

In August 2023, Pereira opened the coffee shop in a house adjacent to the Borden House. There is no confusion about what "Miss Lizzie's" refers to. The shop features images of Lizzie, boasts an overall theme of bloody death, and sells small souvenirs related to the Lizzie Borden story. US Ghost Adventures sued in September 2023.

"Hatchet blade" mark
registered to US Ghost Adventures
USPTO

While there is no confusion over the fact that both businesses aim to profit off the Lizzie Borden story, that overlap in itself does not constitute a trademark infringement. The defendants argued in federal district court, and the court agreed, that Lizzie Borden's name and image, and the story of the Borden murders are in the public domain. Trademark specifically protects only the brand name of the Lizzie Borden House and Museum as a hospitality service provider.

(UPDATE, Aug. 7: US Ghost Adventures has registered marks in "Lizzie Borden" and in its hatchet-blade graphic (pictured) for "hotel and restaurant services," which, I admit, comes closer to a coffee shop than mere hospitality. I would still draw the line. US Ghost Adventures also has registered "Lizzie Borden Museum" for "museum services" and the hatchet-blade image for key chains, jewelry, mugs, golf balls, hats, shirts, etc. Search "Lizzie Borden" at the USPTO for full details. HT@ Prof. Anoo Vyas.)

The trademark test for "consumer confusion" about who is the service provider presents, essentially, a frame-of-reference problem. US Ghost Adventures says that its trademark precludes another hospitality service provider from using the Lizzie Borden name, or anything confusingly similar thereto, and a coffee shop is a hospitality business. The defendants argued, and the court agreed, that a coffee shop is a sufficiently different enterprise from a bed and breakfast as not to induce consumer confusion.

Miss Lizzie's Coffee

It's not that a coffee shop could not infringe the trademark, but that this one has not, the trial court concluded. The plaintiff tried to tighten the connection between the two businesses by pointing to their proximate location and their common uses of hatchets in signs and promotional images. The court found neither proffer convincing. It makes sense to locate any Borden-themed business near the scene of the crime, and the hatchet images the businesses use are different. Lest there be any lingering doubt in a customer's mind, the coffee shop put up a sign avowing its non-association.

(There is some dispute as well about the difference between a hatchet and an axe, which was used in the murder, and which is depicted where. I don't have the bandwidth to, uh, chop through that thicket.)

Notwithstanding the plaintiff's appeal, I think the trial court got it right. Judge Sorokin convincingly suggested by way of example that trademark law does not preclude a business from using the historical name of Sam Adams, as long as the business isn't a brew works. In the same vein, in any close case, I prefer to see trademark law construed as not at cross-purposes with economic development, which Fall River can use. More touristic business floats all boats.

As the appeal unfolds in the First Circuit, an unfortunate and layered backstory is coming to light. For reasons unstated in the record—one might fairly speculate the burden of attorney fees—Pereira discharged his two lawyers, who withdrew from the case in April 2024. In July 2024, Pereira responded pro se to the appellant-plaintiff's brief. 

US Ghost Adventures was able to sue both Pereira and Miss Lizzie's because, according to the allegations, Periera opened the shop about a month before his business registration was formalized. The plaintiff therefore demanded that Pereira personally disgorge ill-gotten profits from that first month.

The problem now on appeal is that a corporation cannot be represented pro se, and Pereira is not an attorney. So his responsive brief, already shaky on legal formalities, cannot represent the position of Miss Lizzie's. The court accordingly ordered that Miss Lizzie's would not be permitted to argue on appeal. In an August 1 reply, the plaintiff then asked the court to decline oral argument entirely, as Pereira inevitably would argue Miss Lizzie's position in violation of the court's order. 

As I said, I think the plaintiff is wrong on the merits, so the First Circuit should affirm. And that would be the safe bet in ordinary circumstances.

But the plaintiff's reply fairly faults Pereira for thin legal arguments in the pro se brief. That puts the appellate court in an awkward position. Even if the plaintiff bears the burden of persuasion on appeal, the First Circuit is looking at a record short on effective counterargument. 

Considering the preliminary disposition of the proceeding in the trial court, the appellate court might err on the side of reversing and remanding, to develop a fuller trial record. The defendants' pro se bind will persist, though, and would threaten an outcome dictated by access to counsel rather than the case on the merits.

There's a deeper layer yet. It happens that Pereira has a troubled history with the law. According to The Standard-Times, in 1996, he "pleaded guilty to stealing more than $119,000 from 15 people after posing as a lawyer and mortgage broker." Appearing as an attorney in a 1993 housing matter, Pereira "was so good, witnesses say, that ... he stood up to a judge, a clerk and another attorney without even raising an eyebrow," The Standard-Times reported in 1995. A veteran attorney said that "he never suspected a thing," and that Pereira "was very polite and seemed pretty knowledgeable about the lead-paint law."

Pereira's record did not improve subsequently. In 2010, he was sentenced to three to five years' imprisonment after "he pleaded guilty to 13 counts of larceny, one count of practicing law without a license and one count of committing that offense after being convicted of the crime in 1996," Wicked Local reported in 2012. As The Herald News put it upon an arrest in 2019: "Since 1982, Pereira has been arraigned approximately three-dozen times on larceny-related charges. His most recent arrest added another 17 larceny charges to his record." He did beat some charges.

To Pereira's credit, I did not think his response in the First Circuit was as devoid of reasoning as US Ghost Adventures alleged. Albeit in improper form, the appellee's brief more or less rehashed the core arguments in the case. If in proper form, that's what the appellant's brief did, too.

Certainly Pereira's criminal history should have no bearing on the trademark case. The case also, ideally, should not be decided based on either party's access to counsel, though such immateriality of resources is not the way of the American legal system, especially on the civil side.

Whatever comes to pass procedurally, I stand by my assessment of the merits. On Friday morning, I picked up a cup of coffee at Miss Lizzie's.

The appellate case is US Ghost Adventures, LLC v. Miss Lizzie's Coffee LLC, No. 23-2000 (1st Cir. filed Nov. 27, 2023). The case in the trial court is US Ghost Adventures, LLC v. Miss Lizzie's Coffee LLC, No. 1:23-cv-12116-LTS (D. Mass. Oct. 27, 2023) (CourtListener).

Greenland celebrates 'National Day,' ever growing autonomy, but dependence on Danish aid persists

Greenland flags celebrate National Day, Qaqortoq.

Yesterday I was in Qaqortoq, Greenland, for Greenland National Day, June 21. (All photos by RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.)

Greenland is a territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. But a visitor might miss that: Greenland flags fly in all parts, and Danish ones are few. Signs increasingly employ the Greenlandic language—which Google Translate does not yet have—without a Danish translation. And though the currency remains the Danish krone, electronic transactions render notes seldom seen.

Americans built a radio station at Narsaq Point. The pictured building
is long abandoned, but the station still broadcasts.

From 1814 to World War II, Greenland was under Danish control, but not formally a part of the kingdom. When Denmark was occupied by the Nazis in World War II, the displaced Danish government signed Greenland over to the protection of the United States. Disused U.S. military installations still dot landscapes. With a new constitution for Denmark after the war, in 1953, Greenland formally became part of the kingdom.

A home rule initiative in 1979 afforded Greenland greater autonomy, but left Denmark in control of foreign affairs, banking, and the legal system. With 75% approval in a 2008 referendum, Greenland claimed further autonomy over its legal system and law enforcement. On National Day in 2009, the official language of Greenland was changed from Danish to Greenlandic.

Qaqortoq

The self-rule law of 2009 allows Greenlanders to declare full independence upon another referendum. And the Danish government has suggested that Greenlanders ought to decide one way or the other. Polls consistently suggest a comfortable majority of Greenlandic support for independence. However, it depends how one asks the question. 

As a county of Denmark, Greenland receives an annual block grant of about US$511 million, which, according to the International Trade Administration, accounts for more than half of Greenland's public budget and 20% of GDP. Greenlandic support for autonomy polls poorly if the question is qualified by a risk to the standard of living. It seems doubtful that the presently leading industries of fisheries and tourism can sustain Greenland's economy without Danish aid.

Qaqortoq "then and now" (image at left from Qaqortoq Museum)

National Day musicians at Hotel Qaqortoq

"Loading," a Nuuk mural by Greenlander Inuk Højgaard,
comments on economic migration from villages to city.

Tourism in the Nuuk fjords, aboard the ferry Sarfaq Ittuk

Entrepreneur Jones develops one-stop tour site

A new website, Flaming Travel aims to fill a market gap in tour and adventure searching, giving world travelers a one-stop shop to search multiple providers.

Flaming Travel is the brainchild of my friend and aptly self-described serial entrepreneur Ben Jones. The multi-talented and polyglot Jones is head of OutStride, where he is a founder coach for other and would-be entrepreneurs. Read about Ben's story at Medium, read his writing at Medium, and follow his adventures on Instragram.

Ben and I hike the Tian Shan, Kyrgyzstan, 2023.
© Justin Cohen

At present, Flaming Travel lists tours by UK-based Lupine Travel and expat-China-founded Young Pioneer Tours. Further development will see the addition of more providers. The idea is to make it faster and easier especially for frequent travelers to identify opportunities to visit new destinations.

Besides a search interface, Flaming Travel allows users to sort data by date, duration, company, country, and the number of countries on an itinerary. So at minimum, Flaming Travel will save users time over visiting multiple websites.

Most travel company websites (notably excepting Lupine: shout out to Megan & co.) list tours by destination or region and have no comprehensive list by date. But frequent travelers might be more concerned about fitting opportunities into available windows of time off work, than concerned about destination. Ability to sort market data chronologically will be a boon to getaway planners.

This post is not an ad, by the way. I'm eager to share Ben's innovation and stimulate interest in world travel.

Bahamian development, identity stall between Columbus, Atlantis; tourist dollars seem not to land

Columbus is absent from Government House, Nassau.

Bowen Yang's amusing portrayal of Christopher Columbus on the Saturday Night Live "Weekend Edition" season premiere in mid-October reminded me of an empty pedestal I saw in Nassau, Bahamas, recently: a sight sadly symbolic of stalled development. 

(All photos and video by RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.)

I was in Bahamas on the country's National Heroes Day on October 9. Bahamas replaced its Discovery Day, recognizing Christopher Columbus, with Heroes Day in 2013. The idea is to honor homegrown Bahamian heroes and shed the cultural domination of the islands' colonial past.

I've written before on my conflicted feelings about Columbus Day. So I was curious when my Lonely Planet told me that I would find a Columbus statue presiding over the capital at Government House in Nassau. Indeed, my pre-pandemic Planet was outdated. The statue was vandalized just in advance of Heroes Day in 2021 and moved into storage in October 2022. 

I found not only an empty pedestal with a crumbling top, but closed gates at Government House. Neglected surroundings, outside the gates, unfortunately spoke to my overall impression of economic development in the Bahamas.

Two bridges connect Nassau to Paradise Island.

Infrastructure is in a sorry state. Roads are a mess, and signage is almost non-existent. Business outside Nassau and island resorts is minimal. I tried walking to a purported national park on New Providence, and I gave up the effort halfway for the lack of walkways alongside merciless speeding traffic. Later, I drove to the park to find little more than a set-aside green parcel walled by chain link.

K9 Harbour Island Green School subsidizes most students' tuition.

Besides the country's relentlessly cheerful people, little thrives on the islands, economically. There is the tourism sector, the stunning natural beauty of the islands, and expat enclaves such as Harbour Island and Spanish Wells. To walk from grimy downtown Nassau across either bridge to the touristic sector known as "Paradise Island," where the famous Atlantis development is located, is to transport oneself between worlds. 

A Disney ship departs Nassau before dusk.

I wondered what shop workers on Paradise Island think when they leave the artificiality of the plaster-and-paint retail village, with its Ben & Jerry's and Kay's Fine Jewelry, for dilapidated, rat-infested residential buildings in the city's corners. I wondered whether tourists see the contrast when they are whisked through downtown en route from the airport to Paradise.

The heart of the city undergoes an equally striking transformation almost daily. Cruise ships pull into the port and unleash a legion of passengers into the downtown district. Western stores such as Starbucks and Havianas open up alongside overpriced jewelers and T-shirt purveyors.

(Video below: A funeral procession for Obie Wilchombe, Parliamentarian, cabinet minister, and tourism executive, proceeded through the heart of the tourist district while cruise passengers were in port on October 11. I watched, I admit, from the balcony at Starbucks. Tourists who didn't see the coffin must be forgiven for assuming the lively music signified joyful festivity. Embodiment of the tourism-government complex himself, Wilchombe likely would have approved.)

Bahamas declared independence from Britain in 1973.

Then in the late afternoon, the passengers return to their ships, and the downtown becomes a ghost town. I walked the streets at dusk and came across a few port workers commuting by foot, a few teens joking about, and a scarily ranting homeless man who caused me to cross the street. Every business was shuttered. It was hard to believe the same space had been dense with vacationers only hours earlier.

A night street party in Nassau reverberates.

Walking Nassau at night, the relative silence was punctured by a raging street party. A man told me that it was an anniversary celebration of the most popular local radio station, and entry, food, and drink were free. He invited me to join, and I did. It was a raucous party inside with a rapper dancing wildly on a stage, flashing lights, and, he was right, free drinks and heaps of homemade local eats. I felt like I was crashing an after-hours cast party at a Caribbean Disney World. I was having fun, but I must have looked out of place—I couldn't help but attract attention as the only person not of color—as a couple of well meaning partygoers asked if I was all right or needed help finding my way.

Signs all over Eleuthera Island promise happy Disney jobs to come.

Determined as it purports to be to carve out a national identity free of colonialism, there is a painful dearth of evidence that the Bahamanian government is accomplishing that. The government imposes a hefty 12% VAT on goods and services, and I'm sure the port fees are substantial. Where is the money going?

The International Trade Association (ITA) well described what I saw: "The World Bank recognizes The Bahamas as a high-income, developed country with a GDP per capita of $25,194 (2020) and a Gross National Income per capita of $26,070 (2020).  However, the designation belies the country’s extreme income inequality, as statistics are driven by a small percentage of high-net-worth individuals, while most Bahamians earn far less." The only evidence of infrastructure investment I saw was that which directly benefited tourists and expats.

True to form, on a ferry between Eleuthera and Harbour Island, I overheard a couple of Americans in golf outfits discussing the plusses and minuses of potential investment in an island hotel. They seemed oblivious to the fact that the hotel name they bandied about was sewn into the breast of the short-sleeve work shirt of a local commuter sitting right beside them.

The historic "British Colonial" hotel, Nassau, lost its Hilton affiliation,
but is under renovation with plans to reopen under independent operation.

 

The one-two punch of Hurricane Dorian and COVID took a heavy toll, to be sure. And tourism income is not yet back to pre-pandemic levels. Still, that can't fully explain the development stagnancy I saw in and among local communities.

Perhaps naively, I expected to find the Bahamas more a reflection of the western sphere of influence than of the developing world. It's only a 30-minute flight from Miami to Bahamas, and 85% of imports come from the United States. But on the ground on New Providence and Eleuthera Islands, the Bahamas reminded me less of Florida and more of Guinea-Bissau—a country plunged into darkness last week for failure to pay a $17m debt to its exclusive power provider, the offshore ship of a Turkish corporation.

Two years since Columbus was vandalized and one year since he was packed away, the solution to native identity at Government House is a rubble-topped pedestal and closed grounds. The people outside the gates have embraced National Heroes Day. But there is little information in circulation about who the Bahamian heroes are or why they should be celebrated. 

The government owes its people better. And I wouldn't mind seeing American- and British-owned tourism companies taking some corporate social responsibility—if that's still a thing—to ensure that something of what they pay into the country is reaching the people and lands that truly give life to today's Bahamas.

'1,000 Places to Fall to Your Death,' Utah edition, means American tort law hasn't undermined pioneer spirit

I can't help but check out the tortscape when I travel.  As mentioned last week, I have been traveling recently in Utah.  The sights are breathtaking.  And as an indicator of the health of the American tort system, I am pleased to report, Utah has many places where one can fall to one's death.

If your foreign friends are like mine, then you too are tired of being teased about fencing at the Grand Canyon, supposedly erected by the National Park Service to protect itself from lawsuits.

It's nonsense, of course.  There are a very few railings and barriers installed at the most popular viewing areas at the Grand Canyon.  Given the often present throng, the limited installations are only sensible, to protect the canyon as well as the people.  Plenty of visitors still manage to fall and die.  And if anything about such deaths speaks powerfully to "the American way," it's the sovereign immunity that usually dispatches any subsequent lawsuits.

(In all seriousness, for a tragic and compelling problem in this vein, and an excellent case for torts profs to introduce the Federal Tort Claims Act, see the recent and pending claim against the National Park Service by the family of Esther Nakajjigo, a human rights activist and tourist who was decapitated by a swinging traffic control gate at Arches National Park in Utah in 2020.  Read more from Moab Sun News, NBC News, Fox13 Salt Lake City, and Yahoo News Australia.  The case is Michaud v. United States, No. 1:21-cv-01547-KLM (filed D. Colo. June 8, 2021) (Court Listener).)

Railings such as these represent a reasonable exercise of discretion by any global measure:
surrounding a viewing platform at Sipapu Bridge at Natural Bridges National Monument.

My friends' teasing persists because it capitalizes on two stereotypes of Americans: first, as camera-happy tourists who don't know how to handle themselves when voyaging giddily away from home on their precious ten days of unguaranteed vacation; and second, as lawsuit-addicted complainants eager to forsake personal responsibility for a pay day.  Corporate America's tort-deform messaging has saturated the globe.

I should know better.  But, I admit, my insecurities are allayed whenever I discover a new place one can fall to death amid the sublime splendor of an American natural wonder.  And I found many such places in Utah.  I'm thinking about writing a book in the vein of Patricia Schultz's 1,000 Places to See Before You Die.  Mine will be "1,000 Places to Fall to Your Death in America."  It's simultaneous travel literature and tort-reform opposition.

This is my favorite new candidate for the book: Kodachrome Basin State Park in Utah.  It's oddly appropriate because the park is in fact named after a corporation.  National Geographic featured the land in color photography in 1949 and, with permission of the Eastman Kodak company, named the area after the company's pioneering color film, which had been introduced in 1935 (and was discontinued in 2009).  The park is a worthwhile stop, or destination unto itself, on Utah's famed Scenic Byway 12, near Cannonville.

Kodachrome Basin boasts some 67 "sedimentary pipes," columns of rock rising from the basin floor.  According to park literature, the pipes are the result of erosion, but geologists are not sure whether historical earthquakes or ancient springs explain the erosion-resistant columns.  There are more than 14 miles of trails in the park from which one can see the pipes and take in the park's chromatic appeal.

I did one of the shorter hikes. The 1.5-mile Angel's Palace Trail rises 150 feet from the basin floor to afford views from Kodachrome to nearby Bryce Canyon.  Angel's Palace offers many short side tracks to scenic viewpoints, like this one:

Here's a 360-degree panoramic:

The trail drops off on both sides:

If you meander down this pathway, it narrows to a small rocky point, maybe 10 square inches of a rounded top of crumbly rock, where, I suppose, someone with a death wish could make a killer TikTok hopping on one foot.  I got only far enough along to take this photo:

In further furtherance of the pioneer spirit, there's one other unmitigated way to die in Utah, and that's in an agricultural encounter.  At the American West Heritage Center in Wellsville, Utah, I was surprised to see this sign:

In 1L Torts, I always include some coverage of sector-specific statutory liability limitations, usually adopted to protect domestic businesses especially from suit by out-of-state tourists.  In my first year as a legal writing instructor in the 1990s, colleagues and I used a problem involving the Colorado skier responsibility law.  Utah has one, too.  This was the first time, though, that I've learned of a sector-specific liability limitation in "agritourism."  Actually, this was the first time I ever heard of agritourism (also "agrotourism").

The cited section of the Utah Code indeed defines agritourism as "the travel or visit by the general public to a working farm, ranch, or other commercial agricultural, aquacultural, horticultural, or forestry operation for the enjoyment of, education about, or participation in the activities of the farm, ranch, or other commercial agricultural, aquacultural, horticultural, or forestry operation."

The statute doesn't depart radically from the negligence standard, but, like the sign says, affords service providers an assumption-of-risk defense when signs are posted.  The statute specifies risks inherent in agritourism:

a danger, hazard, or condition which is an integral part of an agricultural tourism activity and that cannot be eliminated by the exercise of reasonable care, including:
     (i) natural surface and subsurface conditions of land, vegetation, and water on the property;
     (ii) unpredictable behavior of domesticated or farm animals on the property; or
     (iii) reasonable dangers of structures or equipment ordinarily used where agricultural or horticultural crops are grown or farm animals or farmed fish are raised.

I didn't run into any of those problems.  I must be a pioneer at heart.

Me holding up a natural bridge on the Hickman Bridge Trail, Capitol Reef National Park

(All photos by RJ Peltz-Steele, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.)

Library podcast sights bike path highs in Rhode Island

Today is World Bicycle Day.

In tandem with National Bicycle Month in May, podcast Rhody Radio published a poignant episode featuring the East Bay Bike Path, a 14-mile paved trail running between Providence and Bristol, Rhode Island.

East Bay Bike Path, Bristol, R.I., June 2020
(RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

I run, walk, or bike on the path almost every day that I'm home.  I contributed a segment to the podcast (cue 7:30, about two and a half minutes), remembering walks with my late dog, Rocky.

Rhody Radio is a statewide collaborative library project.  Now ongoing, the podcast was launched to keep communities engaged with their local libraries during the pandemic.  This exemplary episode was organized and hosted by energetic Project Lead Jessica D'Avanza, who has served as community engagement librarian for the Barrington (R.I.) Public Library since 2013.

The podcast is episode 43, Libraries, Bicycles, & Storytelling from the East Bay Bike Path, Rhody Radio (May 25, 2021).

Smart graffiti graces Warren, R.I.

Caught some local art in the Clet Abraham tradition on my late-night homeward commute Monday.

Warren, Rhode Island, on Main Street opposite Child Street.

Social-science saucebox opines on bike-bridge closures

A reporter stopped me on a run last week to obtain my critical policy analysis of the bridge-replacement situation on the East Bay Bike Path.  Suffice to say, my testimony was breathless.


Watch at NBC 10 Providence.