Appellate

Appellate (pronounced uh-pel-it)

(1) Of or pertaining to that which can be reviewed by a power or authority vested with the necessary jurisdiction.

(2) A court, tribunal or other body having the power or authority to review and decide appeals made against decisions issued by subordinate individuals or institutions; that which legally can be appealed to.

1726: From the Classical Latin appellātus (called upon, summoned), past participle of appellāre (to appeal) and perfect passive participle of appellō (address as, call by name), the construct being ad (to, towards) +‎ pellō (push; impress).  The noun appellant (one who appeals from a lower to a higher court) dates from the 1610s, from the Anglo-French & French appellant, noun use of present participle of the French appeller (make an appeal), from the Old French apeler, from the Latin appellare (appeal to).  Appellate is an adjective and appellant is a noun; the noun plural is appellants.

Unrelated to the hierarchy of courts, there are words used formal grammar and linguistics including the noun appellative (a common noun; an epithet), the adjective appellative (of or pertaining to an appellative noun or common noun; of or pertaining to ascribing names), the noun appellativeness (the state or quality of being appellative), the adverb appellatively (after the manner of appellative nouns; so as to express whole classes or species and the noun appellativization (the process of a proper name becoming a common noun (such as hoover; kleenex; google et al)).  The antonym is proprialization (White House, Grand Canyon et al).  The noun appellation (designation, name given to a person, thing, or class) entered English in the mid-fifteenth century, from the twelfth century Old French apelacion (name, denomination), from the Latin appellationem (nominative appellatio) (an addressing, accosting; an appeal; a name, title), the noun of action from the past-participle stem of appellare (address, appeal to, name).  An appellation is a descriptive and specific term (Joan of Arc’s appellation was Arc; John the Baptist's was Baptist while those who were most associated with the political discussions which culminated in the formation of the United States of America (USA) are given the appellation “Founding Fathers”.  An appellation differs thus from an official or honorary title such as earl, bishop, general, professor et al but technically, these too are appellations.  The adjective appellative dates from the early fifteenth century (of a noun, serving to name or mark out, common (as opposed to proper))," from the Latin appellativus, from appellat-, past-participle stem of appellare (address, name, appeal to).  As a noun, it was in use by at least the 1590s in the sense of “a common” and by the 1630s as a “title or descriptive name”.

Courts of appeal

Appellate courts, usually styled as courts of appeal, are those vested with the jurisdiction to an appeal from a subordinate court within the same hierarchy.  In Australia, as a general principle, the court system exists in three layers (1) a trial court, (2) an intermediate appellate court and (3) a final court of appeal although variations exist and appeals from lower courts are not always of right; in many cases an application for leave to appeal can be declined.  Details of appellate jurisdiction in English courts appear in Sir William Blackstone's (1723–1780) Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1769), a matrix which has since been a thing of repeated change.  The hierarchical nature of the appellate food-chain is of significance because ultimately it's the final stage which is decisive: A case might for example be heard by eleven eminent judges, one in the supreme court at first instance, three on a court of appeal and seven at a high court so if the first appeal is decided 3-0 and the final 4-3 then one party can have enjoyed the concurrence of 7 of the 11 yet still lose.  That's how the appellate system works.

The Australian court systems are now unitary which means that, depending on the law(s) involved, the avenue of appeal lies to a state, territory or Commonwealth court, appeals to the Privy Council (actually the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC)) in London sundered for Commonwealth matters in 1968 and for those involving the states in 1986 by the Australia Acts although there is one historic relic.  Section 74 of the constitution provides for an appeal from the High Court of Australia (HCA) to the the Privy Council if the court issues a certificate that it is appropriate for the Privy Council to determine an inter se (a case concerning constitutional relations between the Commonwealth and one or more states or between states) matter.  The only such certificate was issued in 1912 and in 1985, the High Court judges (unanimously) observed that the power to grant such a certificate “…has long since been spent… and is obsolete".  However, it’s there with full legal force so, in the strict constitutional sense, an appeal from the HCA to the JCPC, however unlikely, remains possible.

In the matter of Grand Theft Auto (GTA5): Lindsay Lohan v Take-Two Interactive Software Inc et al, New York Court of Appeals (No 24, pp1-11, 29 March 2018)

Truly a martyr, Lindsay Lohan hasn't had much luck in appellate courts.  In a case which took an unremarkable four years from filing to reach New York’s highest appellate court, Lindsay Lohan’s suit against the makers of video game Grand Theft Auto V was dismissed.  In a unanimous ruling in March 2018, six judges of the New York Court of Appeals rejected her invasion of privacy claim which alleged one of the game’s characters was based on her.  The judges found the "actress/singer" in the game merely resembled a “generic young woman” rather than anyone specific.  Unfortunately the judges seemed unacquainted with the concept of the “basic white girl” which might have made the judgment more of a fun read.

Beware of imitations: The real Lindsay Lohan and the GTA 5 ersatz, a mere "generic young woman".

Concurring with the 2016 ruling of the New York County Supreme Court which, on appeal, also found for the game’s makers, the judges, as a point of law, accepted the claim a computer game’s character "could be construed a portrait", which "could constitute an invasion of an individual’s privacy" but, on the facts of the case, the likeness was "not sufficiently strong".  The “… artistic renderings are an indistinct, satirical representation of the style, look and persona of a modern, beach-going young woman... that is not recognizable as the plaintiff" Judge Eugene Fahey (b 1951; associate judge of New York Court of Appeals from 2015-2021) wrote in his ruling.  Ms Lohan’s lawyers did not seek leave to appeal.

In happier times: Gladys Berejiklian (b 1970; Premier (Liberal) of New South Wales 2017-2021) & Daryl Maguire (b 1959, MLA (Liberal) for Wagga Wagga 1999-2018).

Also not having much luck with a matter taken on appeal is former New South Wales (NSW, Australia) Premier Gladys Berejiklian, compelled in 2021 to resign after being found to have committed an act of Billigung, her crucial phrase in a secretly recorded conversation being "I don't need to know about that bit" when her then (secret) lover began to tell her some details of his dubious deals.  To that pertinent observation, Mr Maguire replied "No, you don't".  The suggestion is the premier failed to declare a conflict of interest when dealing with the allocation of taxpayer funds which would be to the benefit of Mr Maguire.

The German Billigung is not so much hard to translate as able to be translated in a number of senses; context is everything.  The way it is used to mean “looking away; avoiding specific knowledge of something which one knows or suspects is happening” was clarified in 1977.  Albert Speer (1905-1981, Nazi Minister for Armaments 1942-1945), the convicted war criminal, had always denied any knowledge of the holocaust and was displeased when sent the English translation of a profile to be published in Die Zeit magazine in which Billigung had been rendered as his “...tacit consent...” of the final solution.  This he corrected, explaining Billigung in this context meant “looking away”.  This meant he averted his gaze from the worst crime of the criminal régime he served in order to be able to deny he knew of it.  Speer, predictably, was able to summon a word to explain this too: Ahnumg (the sensing of something without quite knowing exactly what).  He did at least concede the implication of his translation “...is as grave…” as the original, one biographer noting that had Speer said as much at his trial “…he would have been hanged.”  Other historians and some lawyers disagreed with that but it was an assertion the author was unable to pursue.  When she tried to nudge Speer a little further, pointing out that for one to look away from something, one must first know it's there, he didn’t deny what he’d earlier said but added they “…must never speak of it again".  The moment passed and within weeks he would be dead, dying "on the job" in police slang.  Some have noted the feeling Speer conveyed of always somehow longing to confess his knowledge of the holocaust.  He so often came so close to admitting he knew what he'd always denied, as if the last great act of his life would have been to admit worst of the the guilt he convinced himself (and some others) he'd evaded when the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at the first Nuremberg  Trial (1945-1946) convicted him of war crimes & crimes against humanity (counts 3 & 4) and sentenced him to twenty years imprisonment.  Had he then told the truth, he'd have been hanged.

The words used by Ms Berejiklian: "I don't need to know about that bit" are best understood in modern use as an attempt to manufacture "plausible deniability" and may be compared with how Herr Speer described his response in mid-1944 to being warned by a friend "never, under any circumstances" "to accept an invitation to inspect a concentration camp in Upper Silesia".  Speer's friend explained that at that place he'd "...seen something there which he was not permitted to describe and moreover could not describe".  Having received what he claimed was his first knowledge of Auschwitz, Speer asked no questions of anyone, later admitting: "I did not want to know what was happening there".  That was what he later called Billigung.  There's obviously quite some difference between knowledge of the Holocaust and the dodgy dealings of a politician but the Billigung principle is the same. However, the former premier may have been comforted that unlike the IMT at Nuremberg, the ICAC wasn't vested with capital jurisdiction so there was that.

Enjoying their pipes: Albert Speer in conversation with his lawyer Dr Hans Flächsner (1896-dod unrecorded) and a legal associate, Nuremburg, 1945.     

On 1 October 2021, the NSW ICAC (Independent Commission against Corruption) announced an investigation into the former premier's conduct in office, later handing down a finding she had committed “serious corrupt conduct”.  Interestingly,  despite that, the ICAC made no recommendation criminal charges be pursued because the evidence Ms Berejiklian was required to provide to the ICAC wouldn’t be admissible in a court because there, the rules of evidence are different and a defendant can’t be compelled to provide an answer which might be self-incriminating.  In other words a politician can be forced to tell the truth when before the ICAC but not before a court when charged.  That’s an aspect of the common law’s adversarial system which has been much criticized but it’s one of the doctrines which underpins Western law where there is a presumption of innocence and the onus of proof of guilt beyond reasonable doubt lies with the prosecution.

Ms Berejiklian challenged the findings and validity of the ICAC’s findings, her appeal heard by the NSW Court of Appeal, the state’s highest appellate court.  Her grounds for the appeal were claims (1) the ICAC made errors of law and (2) their report may have been delivered outside its legal authority due the expiration of the term of one of the ICAC’s assistant commissioners prior to the report being delivered.  In a split (2-1) decision handed down in July 2024, the court dismissed the appeal (with costs), the dissenting judge finding that because one assistant commissioner was engaged as a consultant after her term had expired (a role which included assisting in drafting the final report and writing assessments of the credibility of witnesses including Ms Berejiklian) what they did was act outside the limits of the authority conferred on a consultant.  The majority disagreed, finding the appointment as a consultant was in all ways “valid and effective” and also rejected the other grounds cited in the appeal.

So the ICAC’s finding of “serious corrupt conduct” stands.  Responding to the court’s decision, Ms Berejiklian didn’t mention that “c-word”) but thanked the court for its consideration given “...the limited nature of a challenge that can be made to ICAC findings by any citizen.  As the court noted, the ICAC Act does not permit a ‘merits’ review of the findings of ICAC.”  She also noted the split decision and concluded “Serving the people of NSW was an honour and privilege which I never took for granted. I always worked my hardest to look after the welfare and interests of the people of NSW.” 

Appellate courts, the hair police and black letter law

Appellate courts are best known for their rulings in cases of great public interest or legal significance; in the former category these typically are those involving celebrities, sex or anything especially gruesome and in the latter, constitutional matters.  There are exceptions (and some appellate courts do also function in certain specialized matters as courts of first instance) and the US Supreme Court (USSC) has agreed to hear parking-ticket and other minor matters if the law under which a conviction was obtained happened in a jurisdiction where the offence was deemed one of absolute liability and an appeal not permitted.  In those matters, the court held that in the US, a legal principle existed that the state could not convict a citizen of something without granting a means of appealing the decision.  Courts of appeal also hear the quirky and bizarre and in 2022 an appeal was lodged in the Supreme Court of Japan, a young woman in Osaka Prefecture seeking to overturn a ruling from the Osaka High Court that her former high school’s rules and guidance forcing her to dye her brown hair black were lawful.

The young lady had in 2015 enrolled in a high school (operated by the prefectural government) and in the original case (decided by the Osaka District Court) she alleged teachers had at least weekly told her to dye her hair black, instructions which continued despite her explanation she was born with brown hair and it was her natural color.  In September 2016, she began refusing to go to school, her suit against the prefectural government alleging she had suffered mental stress.  In 2021, the district court ordered the prefectural government to pay ¥330,000 (US$3,100) to the former student for certain actions (such as such as removing her name from school rosters after she stopped attending) but ruled also the school’s enforcement of the hair-related regulation exceed the discretionary authority it had been granted.  The plaintiff took the case to Osaka High Court (the first appellate layer) which held that, on the basis: “a wide range of discretion must be permitted for school education in order to allow diversified educational guidance in line with individual and collective conditions”, the ruling of the district court was upheld.  The case was well publicized and attracted much public interest (and comment) and, presumably nudged, the Osaka’s Prefectural Board of Education undertook a survey of rules at high schools under their control but concluded the “compulsory black hair” rule was “necessary”, issuing a statement saying “We will meticulously explain the necessity in order to gain understanding from students’ parents”.  That didn’t please the by now bolshie (former) schoolgirl and in her appeal to the Supreme Court (the next appellate layer) claimed banning brown hair was “unconstitutional”, citing Article 13 of Japan’s Constitution, which stipulates people’s right to pursue happiness.

The case attracted the interest of Doshisha University’s Professor Kayoko Oshima (b 1959) who explained the substantive matter was more the repeated demands the girl “dye her hair black rather than the rule itself”, his point being that the purpose of the rule was to prevent the dying of hair to ensure lurid greens or blues (or, God forbid, blondes) weren’t seen and in the case of someone with natural brown hair, the ruling shouldn’t be enforced.  In other words, for these purposes there should be the legal fiction that “brown is black”, something like the “honorary white” status the Apartheid-era South African government would sometimes grant to visiting PoCs (persons of color; typically athletes or politicians).  The rule, according to the professor, was thus rational but, in certain circumstances, its enforcement was not; an example of the “unintended consequences” which sometimes occur in the application of “black letter law”.

While the matter proceed through Japan's not especially rapid civil system, news organizations began reporting other interesting rules school impose on their female students including mandating white underwear and banning pony-tails on the basis that were the nape of the neck so scandalously to be exposed, it would risk “sexually exciting” male students.  Hair color, length and pony-tails are subject obviously to visual inspection but it's not clear if the underwear dictates are enforced by the same method.  The wide publication of these rules drew much derision and in response, early in 2022, the Tokyo prefecture announced those with natural hair other than black would no longer be required to dye to conform and that underwear need no longer exclusively be white.  The Tokyo authorities took an omnibus approach to reform, announcing also that a wider range of hairstyles would be permitted including the “two-block” (short on the sides and back while long on top) which was interesting because like the also permitted bob, the risk of napes being flaunted was obviously there.  Legal observers commented it was an example of a typically Japanese attempt to be flexible yet not be seen over-turning long defended-rules.  Thus the pony-tail proscription stands even though its rationale was undermined by the new permissiveness extending to the bob; again, black letter law.  Collectively, the “draconian rules” are known in Japan asブラック校則 (buraku kosoku) (black rules) and they have existed since the 1970s when it was noted “foreign influences” were beginning to intrude, resulting in previously unknown "behavioral issues".  As well as hair color and seductive pony tails, the most rigorously policed seems to have been skirt length, particular attention devoted to detecting the devious trick of “skirt-folding”, the standard workaround for those seeking the “above-knee look”.  Knees, it would seem, are thought as potentially provocative as the naked nape of the neck.

Ai Nishida San (b 1992) as she is (left) and as her school decided history would remember her (left).

Interestingly, high-tech Japanese school administrators have proved that even if the day comes when they can no longer make black hair compulsorily, with a little judicious digital editing, retrospectively they can make it seem as if uniformity is maintained.  In 2021, one student circulated a “before & after” pair of images, one her school photograph in untouched form (left), the other as it appeared in her school’s yearbook (right), the latter with hair in an acceptably shiny black.  Commenting on the editing, the former student said the message conveyed by the practice was it “…enforces the idea that black straight hair, a stereotypically Japanese look, is right”, the obvious implication being anything else is wrong and thus un-Japanese.  Her school had actually been accommodating, telling her that because it was her natural color, she was exempt the attention of the hair police and she thought little more about it until she received her 2007 yearbook when she realized she had been rendered “more Japanese”.  Ai Nishida San called the school’s actions “racist” and while, in the narrow technical sense, it might be more correct to suggest the motives were “racialist”, it’s certainly either and hardly in the spirit of the submission Japan’s delegation to the Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920) made, arguing for racial equality to be recognized as one of the core concepts underpinning international relations in the post-war (which turned out to be the inter-war) era.

Response

Response (pronounced ri-spons (U) or ree-spons (non-U))

(1) The act of responding; a reply or reaction; a reaction to a stimulus or provocation.

(2) In the card game bridge, a bid based on an evaluation of one's hand relative to the previous bid of one's partner.

(3) In liturgical use in Christianity, a word, phrase or short sentence recited or sung by the choir or congregation in reply to the priest or officiant at a church service (usually in the plural and used (loosely) also of any versicle or anthem said or sung during or after a lection).

(4) In electronics the ratio of the output to the input level, at a particular frequency, of a transmission line or electrical device.

(5) In pathology, any pattern of glandular, muscular, or electrical reactions induced by stimulation of the nervous system.

(6) In biology, any behavior of a living organism that results from an external or internal stimulus.

(7) In engineering, the reaction of a mechanical device to changes in energy input.

(8) In legal proceedings (and other forms), reply to an objection.

(9) In the calculation of online advertising performance metrics, a measure representing one click-through from an online ad to its destination URL.

1250–1300: From the Latin respōnsum (answer), noun use of the neuter past participle of respondēre (to reply, respond, answer, the construct being re- (in the sense of “again”) + spondere (to pledge), nominal use of the neuter form of respōnsus, the perfect passive participle of respondeō, the construct being from re- + spondeō (promise).  It replaced the Middle English respounse & respons, from the Middle French respons, from the Old French respons, respuns & response (which endures in Modern French as réponse), from the same Latin source.  Response, responsion, responsure & responsiveness are nouns, responsal, responsory & responsorial are nouns & adjectives, responsive is an adjective and responsively is an adverb; the noun plural is resposes.

Depending on context, a response might also be called a feedback, reply or return and in science, medicine and engineering, derived forms such as responseless, counter-response, allergic response, autonomous response, host response etc are coined as required.  In law enforcement and military use, the coinings include armed response, artillery response, naval response etc.  The adjective responsive was an early fifteenth century form meaning “making answer, responding” and was from the Old French responsif and directly from Late Latin responsivus (answering), from the Classical Latin respons-, past-participle stem of respondere.  The use in the sense of “responding readily to influence or action, able or inclined to respond” was documented first in 1762, the adverb responsively & noun responsiveness both appearing within a decade.  In Christianity, the use to mean “a part of the liturgy said or sung by the congregation in reply to the priest” dates from the 1650s.  The transferred sense (adopted in literature, poetry and psychology) of feelings or actions was part of the Romantic movement early in the nineteenth century.  One of the best known “responses” was the adjectival “Pavlovian Response” which dates from 1911 and came from the experimental work of Russian physiologist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849-1936), the best known example of which was the conditioned salivary reflexes of dogs in response to the mental stimulus of the sound of a bell being associated with food.  The term “response time” seems first to have been used in the US in 1958 and was associated with the increasingly precise measurements needed as transistors replaced vacuum tubes in electronics.

Boris Yeltsin, who got a bit of fun out of life.

The phrase “diplomatic response” isn’t really part of the study of international relations.  It’s used in general discourse to describe ways of communicating that are polite, tactful and intended to ensure reasonable relationships are maintained and the self-help sections in bookshops often contain titles which include guides on the topic, their advice on the matter probably usually suggesting the salient points are (1) Politeness (using courteous language to show respect), (2) Neutrality (avoiding taking sides or making definitive statements that might be thought controversial), (3) Constructiveness (focusing on solutions and positive outcomes), (4), Empathy (acknowledging the other person's feelings or perspectives) and (5) Caution (being careful with word choice to avoid misunderstandings or offense).  In diplomacy proper, there are examples such as when Boris Yeltsin (1931–2007; President of Russia 1991-1999) announced he would decline a Japanese offer of help in dealing with a natural disaster because they might use it as leverage in territorial disputes, the Japanese Foreign Ministry responded by saying: “He must have been misquoted”.  Lindsay Lohan in 2017 followed the example when asked about comments made by Donald Trump in 2004 when he said she was: “probably deeply troubled and therefore great in bed. How come the deeply troubled women, you know, deeply, deeply troubled, they're always the best in bed?”  Her response was to say: “I wish him the best. We live in a world of societies that consistently find fault in people. I think it’s a really scary factor. Taking someone else down is never the answer, and I think we all know that.”  It’s not believed Mr Trump responded.

Responses of some who survived political assassination attempts

That photograph.

The compositional elements of the photograph destined to become one of the classics of US political history are so perfect it would have been assumed to be an AI (artificial intelligence) meme had the moment it captured not been witnessed by so many:  Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021, fist raised in defiance, his blood staining his face, being hustled to safety by his Secret Service detail after an assassin’s bullet was a fraction of an inch to the left; one zephyr during its 125 metre (410 feet) travel and Trump would likely be dead.  The image, taken by AP (Associated Press) photographer Evan Vucci (b 1977) was a an extraordinary piece of serendipity for the Trump campaign, being almost entirely of red, white & blue with the Stars & Stripes flying as a backdrop, the whole thing recalling the famous photograph by AP’s Joe Rosenthal (1911–2006) which captured US Marines planting the flag atop Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima.  Quite how the incident will affect the election campaign can’t be assumed but it’s unlikely to be detrimental to the Trump cause and the photograph will help, the strident defiance of the stance exactly what appeals to the base and probably attractive to not a few of the undecided, the contrast with the less dynamic Biden obviously striking.  As a response from someone who has just cheated death, his presence of mind in having the Secret Service delay his evacuation from the stage by a few seconds so he could provide AP their photo-opportunity will guarantee publicity the Republican Party couldn’t buy no matter how many millions they spent.

Senator Marco Rubio (b 1971; senator (Republican) for Florida since 2011 and the "little Marco" of Mr Trump's 2016 nomination campaign) was quick to tweet "God protected" Mr Trump which was noted by those running the betting markets for the 2024 running mate on the Republican ticket.  On his own Truth social platform, Mr Trump said much the same thing and previously, there have been those who made much of being saved from assassination by "providence" and it's not impossible Mr Trump is now persuaded it was indeed "divine intervention".  In the last decade, Mr Trump has done well by pretending to be religious to court the Christian vote: they knew he was lying and he knew that they knew he knew but such was the political symbiosis that all involved ignored the facts and focused on outcomes.  Now, he may start believing his own publicity.          

The footage was viewed world-wide within minutes and almost immdeiately questions were asked including (1) why was a line-of-shot available within 150 m (500 feet) of the target and (2) why were Secret Service agents allocated who were not even tall enough to reach his shoulder (they are as a last resort, human body armor).  The photograph was political gold for the campaign but it should never have been allowed to happen; Mr Trump should have been smothered with Secret Service bodies and immediately taken from the stage.  Some agreed the presence of the shooter was an obvious lapse but that what happened on stage followed protocol and there's never been any policy (or practice) of allocating agents on the basis of their height matching that of the protectee.    

Portrait of Theodore Roosevelt (1903) by John Singer Sargent.

In October 1912, a man shot Theodore Roosevelt (TR, 1858–1919; US president 1901-1909) while he was on the campaign trail for that year’s presidential election.  What saved Roosevelt was the bullet having to pass through a metal spectacles case and, tellingly, a folded, 50 page copy of the speech he was about to deliver on behalf of his Progressive Party.  The enraged crowd were holding and threatening to lynch the shooter but Roosevelt intervened, ensuring he was handed to the safe custody of the Wisconsin police.  Roosevelt had spent much of his life hunting big game and, on the basis he was not coughing up blood, correctly concluded that bullet was lodged in his muscle and had not punctured the lung, the relative lack of external bleeding suggesting no vital artery or vein had been severed.  His response to what would have put most men into a state of shock was to proceed to the hall and deliver his speech as planned.  Lodged too precariously to extract, the bullet remained with him until, peacefully, he died in his sleep at Oyster Bay, New York.

Men in frock coats: The “Big Four” at the Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920), outside the Foreign Ministry headquarters, Quai d'Orsay, Paris.  Left to right: David Lloyd George (1863–1945; UK prime-minister 1916-1922), Vittorio Orlando (1860–1952; Italian prime minister 1917-1919), Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929; French prime minister 1906-1909 & 1917-1920) and Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924; US president 1913-1921).

Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929; Prime Minister of France 1906-1909 & 1917-1920) was a physician who turned to politics via journalism, a not unfamiliar trajectory for many; at a time of national crisis, he undertook his second term as premier, providing the country’s politics with the stiffness needed to endure what was by then World War I (1914-1918); he was nick-named le tigre (the tiger) in honor of his ferociously combative political demeanour.  In February 1919, while travelling from his apartment a meeting associated with the Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920), he was shot several times, his assailant an anarchist carpenter & joiner, Émile Cottin (1896-1937) and two decades on, another leader would learn carpenters can be assassins. Le tigre was lucky, the bullets missing his vital organs although one which passed through the ribcage ending up lodged close to his heart; too close to that vital organ to risk surgery, like Roosevelt, there it remained until his death (from unrelated causes) ten years later.  Cottin’s death sentence was later commuted to a ten year sentence and he would die in battle, serving with the anarchist Durruti Column during the early days of the Spanish Civil War.  The Tiger’s response to his survival was to observe: “We have just won the most terrible war in history, yet here is a Frenchman who misses his target six out of seven times at point-blank range.  Of course this fellow must be punished for the careless use of a dangerous weapon and for poor marksmanship. I suggest that he be locked up for eight years, with intensive training in a shooting gallery.”  In the circumstances, deploring the state of French marksmanship displayed a certain French sang froid.

Although the details of most at the time weren’t known, there were so many plots to kill Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) that books were written exploring the topic, the most comprehensive of which was Killing Hitler (b 2006) by British historian Roger Moorhouse (b 1968).  For a variety of reasons, none succeeded but the first to come close was in Munich in 1939 when a bomb (it would now be called an IED (improvised explosive device) was fabricated by German carpenter and joiner, Georg Elser (1903–1945) and secreted in a pillar directly behind where Hitler was scheduled to be standing while delivering to his old comrades one of his annual set-piece addresses.  However, on the night, because he wanted to return early to Berlin to resume planning his latest foreign policy adventure, he cut short his speech and the bomb detonated a quarter hour after he and his entourage had left; it killed eight and injured dozens.  Hitler’s response was to say his survival was “…proof to me that Providence wants me to reach my goal.”  Surprisingly, Herr Elser, apprehended almost by chance, wasn’t executed, the fate of many who had done much less, but until 1945 was a “privileged prisoner” in relatively pleasant conditions; Hitler, who for years clung to the idea the man must have had some connection with the British secret service, ordered him hanged only when it was obvious he’d be of no use as a hostage.

Hitler again thanked providence when he survived the most celebrated of the attempts, the bomb in July 1944 planted by an army colonel and timed to explode during a military conference.  Hitler on that occasion avoided death because (1) a table’s heavy socle deflected much of the blast, (2) only one of the planned two charged was primed and (3) the conference was moved from an enclosed underground bunker to a building on the surface with walls and windows which were “blown-out” in the explosion, dissipating much energy.  Those details were lost on the Führer who chose again to attribute this life being spared to “providence”.  One of those convince was the visiting Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943), by then a much diminished puppet dictator of a puppet statelet sustained by the German military.  Dutifully the vassal Duce responded to Hitler: “Absolutely I agree with you, it’s a sign from providence”.  That decided, Hitler’s response to this “stab in the back” from his own army was savage, some 7000 rounded up, 5000-odd of which would be executed, the leading figures in the conspiracy dying in an especially gruesome manner, a event filmed although there are contradictory reports about whether it was something Hitler ever chose to view.  In the way of Nazi crack-downs, not all those executed were actually connected with this or any other plot, the security services using the operation as a pretext to dispose of those of one of their many lists of “undesirables”.

A prototype Humber Imperial fitted with a 273 cubic inch (4.5 litre) Chrysler LA V8.  By the mid 1960s the Humber Super Snipe (1964-1967) was essentially a mid-1950s US sedan being produced in England, a phenomenon which was emblematic of a malaise afflicting much of the UK's motor industry.  The Imperial was an up-market, better-appointed Super-Snipe and after Chrysler took a stake in the company, perhaps as many as six V8 prototypes were built but the advantages gained were few and the project never proceeded to general production.  When Chrysler in 1967 took over Rootes Group (the corporation of which Humber was a part) the Super Snipe range was discontinued, replaced in the UK market by Australian-produced Chrysler Valiants, chosen in preference to the US-built versions because they were available in right-hand drive configuration and the Commonwealth Preference scheme meant they attracted lower import tariffs.  Although only ever a niche product in the UK market and never approaching the sales volumes achieved by the big Humbers, the Valiants remained available until 1976.      

Arthur Augustus Calwell (1896-1973; Australian Labor Party (ALP) leader of the opposition 1960-1967) was a rare Australian target of an attempted political assassination.  Two years after being knighted by Paul VI (1897-1978; pope 1963-1978) (his Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great (KCSG) apparent unrelated to the attempt on his life), Calwell was sitting in the front passenger seat (it’s an Australian tradition) of his official car when 19 year-old student Peter Kocan (b 1947), at point blank range, fired a shell from a sawn-off rifle, aimed directly at his target.  In 1966, the Commonwealth’s car fleet still included their last intake of British-built cars and Calwell was sitting in a Series V Humber Super Snipe (1964-1967), an outdated machine but one which was stately & roomy and thus enjoyed by politicians who found their replacement, the lower Ford Galaxie, less comfortable, especially the ingress and egress.  Fortunately for Calwell, the side glass in the old-fashioned Humber was thick and instead of penetrating the pane, it shattered, absorbing most of the bullet’s energy; it was spent by the time it had travelled those few feet, lodging harmlessly in the lapel of the target’s jacket, Mr Calwell's injuries limited to some minor cuts from the broken glass.  Kocan was found guilty of attempted murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, sent initially to Sydney's Long Bay Gaol before being transferred to Morriset Psychiatric Hospital for the criminally insane.  There he studied literature and after his release became a prize winning poet and novelist, eventually graduating from the University of Newcastle with a BA (Hons) & MA.  Calwell’s response to the man who tried to kill him was to pay a visit to the hospital and, although a great hater in the ALP tradition, he was also a good Catholic, sending a letter of forgiveness.

Arthur Calwell leaving hospital in his Humber Super Snipe, the presence in numbers of the New South Wales (NSW) Police suggesting they were going to make sure nothing more happened to him before he returned to Victoria.  The police cars are locally assembled Rambler Classics and in Australia, various AMCs were in small volumes assembled and sold under the Rambler name until 1977.

In an example of how difficult it can be for security services to monitor and intercept those who plan to kill political figures, the motive of the man who in March 1981 shot Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; US president 1981-1989) was to impress an actress with whom he’d become obsessed.  That was something even less likely to attract the attention of the authorities than the earlier case when a botched attempt had been made by a member of Charles Manson’s (1934-2017) “Family” cult to assassinate Gerald Ford (1913–2006; US president 1974-1977).  Mr Reagan’s injury was life-threatening and was saved only by surgical intervention.  When greeted by the surgeons who were to perform the operation, his response was to tell them he hoped they “…were all Republicans”.  In an example of good bedside manner they assured him he was in safe political hands although one later confessed to being a lifelong Democrat.  When his wife arrived at the hospital, he delivered the line “Honey, I forgot to duck”, borrowed from boxer Jack Dempsey (1895–1983) who said it to Mrs Dempsey on the night he'd lost a bout to Gene Tunney (1897–1978).

Wimp

Wimp (pronounced whimp)

(1) A weak, ineffectual, timid person.

(2) In particle physics, a speculative particle: Weakly Interacting Massive Particle.

(3) In computer science, a summary of the elements of the graphical user interface (GUI): (Windows, Icons, Menus (or Mice), Pointing device (or Pull-down menus).  

1915-1920: In the sense of "someone weak or timid", it's an Americanism of uncertain origin although etymologists have concluded it almost certainly is a back-formation from whimper.  The earliest known use in print dates from 1920 but it seems not to have re-appeared until 1960 although wimpish persisted.  In the US, the meaning must by the 1930s have had some currency because two pop-culture characters used a form of nominative determinism (a relationship between an individual's name and their qualities, habits or vocation) in their names: J. Wellington Wimpy who was devious but cowardly and the quiet, ineffectual Wallace Wimple.  The idiomatic form "wimp-out" is a synonym of "chicken out" and often used as "wimped out".  The use by the US Marine Corps (USMC) as the abbreviation for "weak in mountain phase" was a way of expressing an opinion of those cadets who lacked the endurance or other qualities demanded by the "mountain phase" of training conducted in Dahlonega, Georgia.  The use in computer user interfaces is said to date from 1980 and have been coined by computer scientist Merzouga Wilberts, about whom little appears to be known.  The name "Merzouga Wilberts" may have started as some sort of in-joke which has come to be spread by the internet (a la the "inventor of the toaster") and the credit for the pioneering work on computer GUIs is usually afforded to the work done by Xerox Corporation's PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) during the 1970s.  Less well-known use as an acronym in computing includes Windows Interface Manipulation Program, Windows impersonator and (as WiMP), Windows Media Player.  The spelling whimp was probably an imperfect echoic for the time when use was predominately oral.  Wimp is a noun, verb & adjective, wimping & wimped are verbs, wimpish & wimpy are adjectives; the noun plural is wimps.

The biggest data

Based on the biggest data sets ever gathered, cosmologists use mathematics to calculate the actual parameters of the universe and the numbers which have emerged from the equations suggest some ninety percent of matter (or energy) has yet to be discovered, observed or defined.  One possibility is mechanical; the math is wrong.  The other explanation is the data is incomplete because or means of measuring or observing the cosmos is not able to see anything.  Scientists, as impressed as economists by the beauty of their mathematical models, prefer the later.  To account for all that’s “missing”, they speak of dark matter and dark energy and divide their energies between looking for the dark stuff and developing theories which might explain its nature.

Weakly interacting massive particles (wimps) emerged as one theory; a speculative particle thought wholly or partially to constitute what is commonly referred to as "dark matter" but which may be "dark energy".  The theory suggests a wimp interacts via gravity and any other forces and is inherently non-vanishing in its strength.  For the theory to work, wimps must date from the earliest moments of the Universe and be "cold" dark something because modelling of a universe full of cold dark matter produces a distribution of galaxies close to what we today observe.  However, a simulation with hot dark matter reduces a universe to a sort of cosmic sludge.

Wimps may be out there and if they're they're there, they're everywhere.  Enhanced images from the Hubble Space Telescope.

The term "weakly interacting massive particles" was coined by US theoretical physicist Pierre Sikivie (b 1949) in 1983 but the underpinnings of the concept lie in the work of two US theoretical physicists Howard Georgi III (b 1947) & US theoretical physicist Sheldon Glashow (b 1932) who in 1974 published what is considered the first “grand unified theory”, a framework which could accommodate “everything” in the universe and thus explain its structure and formation (though not the origin).  Immensely influential, physicists, cosmologists & mathematicians have since been “plugging-in” data and theories to this now much-modified framework.  Georgi & Glashow had proposed entities which behaved like stable, weakly interacting massive particles as a possible explanation for dark matter but it was Sikivie who came up with the memorable term.  In the way these things happen in science, there are also now SWIMPs (super weakly interacting massive particle) and GIMPs (a class of SWIMP which interacts only gravitationally).

String theory: Lindsay Lohan in string bikini, Mykonos, Greece, August 2014.

In the mysterious world of particle physics, this stuff is understood by a relative few and even among them there are disagreements but the hypothetical WIMPS can be described as particles which interact through the weak nuclear force and gravity, but not through electromagnetic or strong nuclear forces, which is why they are considered “weakly interacting”.  Speculative theories in physics have become not uncommon because, although in the last hundred-odd years the understanding of the universe has been transformed, the “standard” model of the place contains anomalies and into these gaps, theories are plugged.  WIMPs however are like the various flavours of string theory in that while there’s a perfect internal logic, not only have the notions never been tested but it not possible to design a test.  Despite that, such is the mathematical elegance that some hypothetical entities and structures are so compelling that adherents cling to them with the driven intensity of seventeenth century Jesuit priests.  Still, the WIMP is an attractive candidate as at least part of the explanation for dark matter because, as described, they fulfil a number of what all in the field agree are critical criteria:

Stability & longevity: To exist as imagined, WIMPs must be very long-lived and inherently stable, enabling them persist throughout cosmic history.  That doesn’t contradict the notion of “nothing lasts forever” because need last only between time beginning and ending and it’s assumed both states either have happened (perhaps many times) or will happen.

Abundance: There is nothing to suggest any reason why WIMPS couldn’t have been produced in the earliest moments of the universe and thus been an inherent part of cosmic inflation, meaning they might exist in sufficient quantities to account for the observed amount of dark matter.

Strength in interaction with other stuff: The WIMP’s weak interactions would explain why they’ve yet to be detected, such is the rarity with which they interact with ordinary matter.

So, although wimps remain wholly hypothetical, assuming the math is correct, wimps do successfully fill the astrophysical gaps and there is a near consensus today among cosmologists that most of the mass in the Universe is dark.  That said, the answer remains, “don’t know”. 

An exquisite and a wimp: Baldur Benedikt von Schirach

Exquisite is used almost exclusively as an adjective, applied typically to objects or performances but it’s also a noun, albeit one always rare.  As a noun it was used to describe men who inhabited that grey area of being well dressed, well coiffured, well mannered and somewhat effeminate; it was a way of hinting at something without descending to the explicit.  PG Wodehouse (1881-1975) applied it thus in Sam the Sudden (1925) and historians Ann (1938-2021) & John Tusa (b 1936) in The Nuremberg Trial (1983) found no better word to apply to former Hitler Youth Leader Baldur von Schirach, noting his all-white bedroom and propensity to pen poor poetry.  The companion word to describe a similar chap without of necessity the same hint of effeminacy is “aesthete”.  In The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials: A Personal Memoir (1992), Brigadier General Telford Taylor (1908–1998; lead US counsel at the Nuremberg Trial) wrote of von Schirath that: “at thirty-nine, was the youngest and, except perhaps for Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893–1946; Nazi foreign minister 1938-1945) and Hans Fritzsche (1900–1953; Nazi propagandist), the weakest of the defendants.  If wimps had then been spoken of, Schirach would have been so styled.”  

Nazis at the Berghof: Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945), Martin Bormann (1900–1945), Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945, Hitler's designated successor & Reichsmarschall 1940-1945), and Baldur von Schirach (1907-1974; head of the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) 1931-1940 & Gauleiter (district party leader) and Reichsstatthalter (Governor) of Vienna (1940-1945), Berchtesgaden, Bavaria, Germany, 1936.  Of much, all were guilty as sin but von Schirach would survive to die in his bed at 67.  

Convicted by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (IMT, 1945-1946) for crimes against humanity, von Schirach received a twenty year sentence, escaping conviction for his role as Nazi Party youth leader and head of the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth), (though he was a good deal more guilty than Socrates in corrupting the minds (and perhaps more) of youth), the sentence imposed for his part in deporting Viennese Jews to the death camps while Gauleiter (district party leader) and Reichsstatthalter (Governor) of Vienna.  Had subsequently discovered evidence against him been available at the trial, doubtlessly he’d have been hanged.