Little is known about the exact origins of the music we now know as the blues.[ No specific year can be cited as the origin of the blues, largely because the style evolved over a long period of time and existed in something approaching its modern form before the term blues was introduced, before the style was thoroughly documented. One important early reference to something closely resembling the blues comes from 1901, when an archaeologist in Mississippi described the songs of black workers which had lyrical themes and technical elements in common with the blues. The most important direct antecedent of the blues was the spiritual, a form of religious song with its roots in the camp meetings of the Great Awakening of the early 19th century. Spirituals were a passionate song form, that "convey(ed) to listeners the same feeling of rootlessness and misery" as the blues.Spirituals, however, were less specifically concerning the performer, instead about the general loneliness of mankind, and were more figurative than direct in their lyrics. Despite these differences, the two forms are similar enough that they can not be easily separated — many spirituals would probably have been called blues had that word been in wide use at the time.

Judicial Commission

The Judicial Commission of New South Wales is a statutory corporation that provides continuing education to and examines complaints made against judicial officers in New South Wales, a State of Australia. The commission is headed by the Chief Justice of New South Wales and consists of the heads of each of the major courts in New South Wales plus community representatives. The commission is the only body of its type in Australia. Similar bodies are in existence in Canada, India and the United States. The work of the commission is split into two distinct areas. The first is a conduct division which deals with complaints about judicial officers. The other area is the educative function, which provides information on sentencing information, legal development and ongoing training for judicial officers. The commission marked a significant change in the legal system in New South Wales. It restored public confidence in the judicial system which had been rocked by a serious of scandals and allegations of misconduct in the early 1980s. The commission eliminated the political process from the removal of a judge from public office. Judges were no longer subject to the whim of the government of the day in whether they could be removed from office. Instead, the commission now provides a means outside of politics for the dispassionate consideration of misconduct by judicial officers. As one present judge has suggested, the commission has actually improved and safe-guarded independence of the courts. The model for a judicial commission has received support for introduction elsewhere in Australia.