W are in Paris. We flew from Seattle on Thursday mid day and nine hours later we landed in Paris at 9:00 am Friday. We arrived on an overcast day. The drive to the hotel, which should have been no more then forty five minutes long took us almost two hours due to rush hour stop and go congestion. When we finally arrived the room wasn't ready so we walked around and then had coffee. After that we had a very…
Dennis Hevesi has written an obituary for Manfred Gans http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/world/europe/19gans.html that reads like a wonderful short story that could be made into a movie. Gans was a child, living with his parents in Borken, Germany. He had been born there April 27, 1922. His father was a well to do merchant in town and the first Jew to serve on the city council. As life for Jews became more and more difficult under Hitler his parents sent him to England when he…
Edward Gonalez, a emeritus professor of political science at the University of California, Los Angeles wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Times about the position of the Democrats today. He says that the administration and the Congressional Democrats are in deep trouble because they did not concentrate on the economy and loss of jobs, but rather spent a year fighting over a health care plan that only served to further divide politically. He believes it was…
I was born in 1935. Jack Borden graduated from law school at the University of Texas a year after I was born. Both of us are still practicing law, except I am seventy five and Jack is one hundred and one. He goes to his office in Weatherford, Texas five days a week. He is the oldest practicing member of the Texas Bar. "If I were to go home and sit down, I wouldn’t live another year. I come down…
I was listening to a National Public Radio’s broadcast about President Obama’s new oval office rug http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129609461and was interested to learn about Theodore Parker who was a minister of the Unitarian church (1810-1860). It turns out that Martin Luther King frequently used things Parker had said or written and that one of the quotes in the rug was attributed to King, but had originally been said by Parker. Jamie Stehm wrote an article in the Washington Post Oval Office rug gets…
Last Sunday Lita and I headed out of Gig Harbor on our boat Lita Theresa. She is a 2006 39' Grand Banks Eastbay style. A very nice size boat with a beam of 13.3 feet that draws only 3' of water. With twin Yanmar disel engines it has a top speed of 30 knots and cruises very comfortably. We were cruising along in warm weather and flat seas thinking what a pleasure it is to be on the salt water. But,…
The Industrial Workers of the World, the IWW, also known as the "Wobblies" were a militant labor organization during a time when industry used goons, a willing police force or private guards to violently stop labor organizations. Beatings, shootings and arrests of union workers was common place. The IWW had some 100,000 members at its peak in 1923. They advocated a socialistic or communist ideology and had a reputation for sabotage and violence against industry to achieve labor demands. In Washington State the…
St. Mary’s Catholic church is celebrating its 100th year anniversary this year. I was baptized in the original church building located at the corner of 7th& N Avenue in Anacortes and served Mass as an altar boy when growing up. In fact, when the original church building was closed and the church moved to a new structure, I bought two stained glass windows from the closed church building. One is installed in our Gig Harbor home with a back light…
Johann Hari wrote a compelling post on work conditions in China earlier this month. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/and-the-most-inspiring-go_b_672993.html. His report includes such facts as the estimate that as many as 600,000 people are killed as a result of their work or work conditions in China each year. He describes the typical working situation as giant factory-cities from which the people rarely leave. Work hours average from 7:45 am to 11:00 pm. They are required to buy from the company canteen. At the same…
Lita and I are in Hawaii. We flew to Honolulu a couple of days ago and then flew on to Kauai to attend the annual Inner Circle of Advocates convention. The weather on Saturday, when we arrived, was nice but on the muggy side. Our hotel is the St Regis at Princeville. The location is beautiful with a large bay and we look across to the green and uninhabited other side. The drive was 45 minutes from the airport. We learned…
