Phil Rizzuto died at age 89 years on Tuesday. I remember him when he played with the other famous Yankee’s of that era. He was a great New York Yankee short stop who ended up in the Hall of Fame. Known as "the scooter" he played for the Yankee’s during the 1940’s and 1950’s. He played in five All-Star games and was a flashy player who played alongside people like Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle. He had tried out with…
Letters to the Editor in the New York Times of August 8th captured my feeling of disappointment in Congressional Democrats as having no backbone at all when it comes to Iraq and the continued intrusion into America’s right of privacy by this administration. As letters in the Times put it: "To their shame, sixteen Democrats in the Senate and forty one in the House voted to hand the president monarchial powers that the signers of the Constitution had withheld. The…
Seattle attorney Jan Peterson sent me a note about my post involving Black Porters which I thought I should share with you: Paul, I read with interest, as usual, your piece on Rising from the Rails. My family on my father’s side were railroad people and as a result we had a pass to ride on the trains whenever we wanted. Even as late as my early childhood in the forties I remember Pullman porters. They were all black men…
When I was growing up in the small town of Anacortes, my dad, Paul Luvera, Sr., was a prominent figure in town as well as the West side of the State of Washington. He operated our neighborhood grocery store at the same location, 7th and Commercial, for many years. He had been active in every community club or town activity for years. He had even served one term in the State Senate. He was very well known and was prominent…
I’m back from Boston by way of New York after attending a meeting for the Inner Circle of Advocates, a national plaintiff lawyer’s professional organization. Unfortunately, I saw little of Boston because I arrived late Saturday and had meetings all day Sunday and Monday. I then left early on Tuesday to meet my wife Lita in New York. We spent Tuesday night in New York where we attended the musical Wicked and left early Wednesday for Seattle. When we left…
I leave for Boston early Saturday for a meeting of a professional law group I belong to, the Inner Circle of Advocates. So, it seems appropriate to share some information about the city and state. The city of Boston is also known as "Beantown" or "The Hub." It’s population is nearly 600,000 people. It is the largest city in Massachusetts and New England (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut), and the capital of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts….
Malcom Gladwell in his book The Tipping Point discusses the 80/20 rule. The idea is that in so many things 80% vs 20% is a percentage factor. For years I’ve seen references to this percentage rule applied to sports and many other areas of life. Gladwell says economists often talk about the 80/20 principle. That in any situation roughly 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people involved. In most societies 20% of the criminals commit 80%…
I’ve written about the oppressive policies of the Bush administration and that of Woodrow Wilson before https://paulluverajournalonline.com/weblog/2007/02/p.html. But, I was primarily describing the pre World War I situation and the Palmer raids. In fact, the situation did not improve after the start of war in 1917, and instead became much worse. Not unlike the situation in this country after the Bush Administration rammed the Patriot Act through Congress. The Sedition Act was passed in 1918 while Wilson was president and…
Larry Tye has written a fascinating book Rising From The Rails which gives the history of black railroad porters and the profound influence they had as a result of what they learned from their contact with white passengers. They picked up the newspapers or books the passengers left on the train and read them. They listened to conversations about business, education and the affairs of people and applied the lessons in their own families. Their good influence had a ripple…
I’ve previously written about the world’s major religions https://paulluverajournalonline.com/weblog/2006/11/outline_of_the_.html. Former Secretary of State under President Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright wrote a book The Mighty & The Almighty which I read when it first came out, but recently read some excerpts I had saved from the book. In a chapter Learning about Islam she reminds us that in 636 Christians fought Muslims over Jerusalem resulting in the death of 70,000 Christians and Islamic control of Jerusalem. In 1099 crusaders retook the…
