Last Saturday night my wife Lita and I attended the Tacoma Symphony fund raising auction at the convention center in Tacoma. One of the items available was a musical visit to the Wurlitzer Manor and Gardens in Gig Harbor (http://www.wurlitzermanor.com/) We live in Gig Harbor and some how I had never heard of this place or a Wurlitzer organ in our area, so I looked it up on the Internet. I found an article in the Puget Sound Online Pipeline…
The Seattle PI reports that Ken Burns, the documentary film maker, is planning a documentary film on Seattle bootlegger Roy Olmstead (1886 – 1966). From 1920 to 1933 the sale and distribution of alcoholic beverages was illegal in the United States under prohibition. However, Olmstead became Washington’s biggest bootleggers’s even before that time. On November 1, 1914 by a margin of 52% Washington voters passed an initiative making this state one of 23 other "dry" states which prohibited the sale…
In his book Catholicism at the CrossroadsPaul Lakeland examines the Catholic Church of 2008. Lakeland teaches at Fairfield University and holds the Aloysius P. Kelly S.J. Chair in Catholic Studies there. He has written previous books on the subject, one of which won first place for theology in the Catholic Press Association’s 2005 awards. Here are a few of he points he makes in this well thought out and reasonable book. In his list of some ten steps toward a…
November 4this the anniversary of the death of my father, Paul Luvera, Sr. Dad died in Anacortes, Washington on that date in 1990 at age 92. He was born March 25, 1898 in Reggio Calabria, Italy, the son of Niccola and Fillippa Luvera. Reggio is located right at the toe of Italy across from Sicily. His Italian name was Paolo Nicola Luvera, but in America he was Paul Nicholas Luvera.. In 1902 my grandfather Nicola was working in a slaughter…
Gavin Menzies has written a book, 1434 The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet sailed to Italy and ignited by Renaissance (Harper Collins 2008) The premise of the book is that in 1434 the Chinese sailed to Europe bringing with them knowledge of navigation, astronomy, maps of the world and knowledge unknown to Europe. The Chinese were master boat builders. In 1434 the fleet sailed from China to Cairo and Florence and then back across the world using devices they had…
Stafford Betty has written an article "Why U.S. Catholics are Heading for the Exits" in the October 17, 2008 edition of the National Catholic Reporter. It’s well written and insightful. He begins by saying that some 20 million American adults describe themselves as "ex Catholics" and says that anywhere from one third to one half of fundamentalist church members once belonged to the Catholic Church. Betty maintains there are three primary reasons for the exodus. One, he says, is: "Fundamentalist…
As soon as I saw the photo of my candidate, Obama, with his shoes up showing the holes in the bottom of both shoes I was, well, suspicious. I immediately thought of Adali Stevenson, the Illinois governor (Obama's home state) who was the Democratic candidate for president in 1952 and 1956. Anyone old enough to remember the 1952 campaign would remember the photograph taken of Stevenson with the sole of one shoe showing a hole in it. The hole in the sole became a campaign issue…
On July 9, 1998 Melvin Mouron Belli, "The King of Torts," died in his San Francisco home of pancreatic cancer. He was 88 years old. He was survived by his fifth wife, three sons and three daughters. I happened across a reference about Belli that reminded me what an enormous figure he was in the plaintiff’s bar for so very many years. I decided to review some highlights in this admittedly over long post, but given the extraordinary figure he…
