What constitutes a name? In 1976, North Dakota short-order cook Michael Dengler sued for the right to change his name to 1069. He said that each digit reflected an aspect of his identity; 6, for example, symbolized his “relationship with the universe in my understanding of my spatial occupancy through this life.” He insisted that “the only way that this identity can be expressed is 1069.”

The state supreme court wrestled with the implications:

If the proposed change is written or printed it would simply appear in Arabic symbols, 1069; but if it is verbalized would it be ‘one thousand sixty-nine,’ ‘one naught six nine,’ ‘one zero six nine,’ or would it be ‘ten sixty-nine’? Petitioner, during the oral argument, stated how he would verbalize it, but this would not eliminate the problem because other persons will not know this.

Some observers joked that he could go by “Juan.” But in the end the court refused the request altogether. “Innovative ideas, even though bordering on the bizarre, are frequently encouraged and may be protected by the law and the courts, but to use the court or law to impose or force a number in lieu of a name upon society is another matter.”

I feel loyal to someone because of a bond of family, friendship, collaboration, or purpose. I’m moved by an idealistic sense of duty. But in supporting him I’m committing myself to the welfare of an individual person — and that’s practically the opposite of idealism.

“The first assumption casts the loyal agent as praiseworthy from an impartial point of view,” writes Irish philosopher Philip Pettit. “The second presents him as the very exemplar of partial concern. … To be loyal is to be dedicated to a particular individual’s welfare, and that seems to conflict with the idea that the loyal agent is idealistic or dutiful.”

See Meek Chic.

Richard Martin, MP for Galway, earned the nickname “Humanity Dick” for his efforts against the abuse of animals in the early 19th century. In 1822 he brought a donkey into court to display the scars of a beating, winning the world’s first conviction for animal cruelty.

Sadly, his cause was still being fought 80 years later, when the “brown dog affair” divided Edwardian England. A London physiologist had allegedly dissected a conscious terrier before 60 medical students. The physiologist won a suit for libel, but his opponents commissioned a bronze statue with a damning inscription:

In Memory of the Brown Terrier Dog done to Death in the Laboratories of University College in February 1903, after having endured Vivisection extending over more than two months and having been handed from one Vivisector to another till Death came to his Release. Also in Memory of the 232 dogs vivisected at the same place during the year 1902. Men and Women of England, how long shall these things be?

The statue occasioned four years of riots, vandalism, and controversy. Battersea Council finally had it melted down — but a replacement was erected in 1985.

Does living in Iowa constitute cruel and unusual punishment? Hughes Bagley thought so — in 1982 he was paroled from federal prison on the condition that he live in Sioux City and remain within the federal district of northern Iowa for 12 years. He asked the court to set this aside so that he could return to Seattle.

“Although we might share Bagley’s enthusiasm for the Pacific Northwest,” wrote judge Herbert Choy, “we believe, and so hold, that it is not cruel and unusual punishment to require Bagley to serve his parole term in Iowa.”