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Month: January 2010

ALISON KAIRIS NAMED TO PRESIDENT’S LIST GONZAGA UNIVERSITY

ALISON KAIRIS NAMED TO PRESIDENT’S LIST GONZAGA UNIVERSITY

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Alison Kairis is my grand daughter who is in her second year at Gonzaga University. She is an outstanding athlete, a great student and an outstanding human being. You can take it from me as a very unbiased and objective source of information. So, you'll understand and forgive my adding the following to this blog….. AREA RESIDENT NAMED TO PRESIDENT’S LIST  AT GONZAGA UNIVERSITY      Alison L. Kairis, a Sophomore from Bellevue, WA, was among the 987 undergraduate students named…

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RUDE BEHAVIOR BY JUSTICE SAM ALITO

RUDE BEHAVIOR BY JUSTICE SAM ALITO

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How should Americans and, in particular, lawyers, react to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Alito shaking his head and clearly mouthing the words "It’s not true" during the State of the Union Address by the President of the United States? It happened when the President said "With all due deference to separation of powers, last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests….." Suppose you and I were in the…

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POLITICAL POLLS AND POLITICAL HUMOR

POLITICAL POLLS AND POLITICAL HUMOR

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Jason Linkins has a great post in the Huffington Report "Comic Strip Artfully Dissects The Media's Obsession with Polls" posted January 26th. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/26/comic-strip-artfully-diss_n_437345.html . The comic strip which clearly illustrates what is wrong with almost all of media political "polls" can be found at this link. Thanks to PhDcomics.com for creating it. Volume  44 Number 2 International Society of Barristers Quarterly has reproduced a talk given by Will Durst, political humorist. Here are just a few of his comments: "We have to remember William Henry…

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BOOK BURNING IS ALIVE AND WELL IN AMERICA

BOOK BURNING IS ALIVE AND WELL IN AMERICA

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The classic 1966 movie Faherheit 451 is based on the novel by Ray Bradbury and is being replayed in real life in Ashville, North Carolina. According to The American Trial Lawyer Magazine, the Amazing Grace Baptist Church held a book burning on Halloween. They decided they would burn "Satan's works" and burn the evil books no one should read. These books, however, included many Bibles that were not the King James Version (described as "Satan's Bible's"), books of "heretics" like Billy Graham, Mother Teresa and Catholic popes as well as many…

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SCOTTSDALE & TORNADO WARNINGS

SCOTTSDALE & TORNADO WARNINGS

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We flew  to Scottsdale on Thursday. It wasn't too bad coming in, just a little bumpy, but there was  a  down pour of continuous rain once  we were on the ground. Our friend, Art Swanson, was driving over from the Palm Springs area to go with me to the car auctions this weekend. When he arrived, he looked like someone who had faced  death and survived. Highway 10 from California, he  said, was just plain awful. He went through high winds that moved his car (and…

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Drew Westen: Obama Finally Gets His Victory For Bipartisanship

Drew Westen: Obama Finally Gets His Victory For Bipartisanship

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Permit me one more comment about the Massachusetts election. Drew Westen has artfully expressed exactly how I feel right now about President Obama's refusal to put on the political gloves. Here's part of what he writes in the Huffington Report http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ and I think he says it so well: "The President's steadfast refusal to acknowledge that we have a two-party system, his insistence on making destructive concessions to the same party voters he had sent packing twice in a row in…

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MASSACHUSETTS, BARACK OBAMA & JIMMY CARTER

MASSACHUSETTS, BARACK OBAMA & JIMMY CARTER

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I have written almost nothing about national politics since Barack Obama was elected president, but the election in Massachusetts is just too much to stomach. A Seattle Times article contained a quote that I thought accurately described what happened in that vote: "Scott Brown caught the wave," Massachusetts Democratic consultant Dan Payne said. "People are worried about jobs, angry about Wall Street bonuses, upset about the deals being made for health-care legislation, afraid of nuts like the underwear bomber. Nothing…

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THE BOOK “HOW MANY PEOPLE DOES IT TAKE TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE?”

THE BOOK “HOW MANY PEOPLE DOES IT TAKE TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE?”

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I was given as a gift a book with the unusual name of How Many People does it Take to Make a Difference? written by Dan Zadra and Kobi Yamada. I was inspired by the thoughts in this brief book as well as the message it contained. In a passage entitled "You are Royalty" the authors point out that if you can drink from your kitchen faucet whenever you want, you are better off then 1.5 billion people who have…

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SEARCHING FOR OUR ITHAKA – Constantine Cavafy

SEARCHING FOR OUR ITHAKA – Constantine Cavafy

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I enjoy poetry. Some poems are inspiring as well as offering wise advice. One such poem for me is Ithaka by Constantine Cavafy. Constantine Cavafy (1863 – 1933) was a well known Greek poet who wrote the poem "Ithaka" around 1864 and was first published in 1911. There are a number of translations. It is  believed he modeled it after Odysseus, the hero of Homer's Odyssey. Ithaka is an island in the Ionian Sea off the coast of Greece to which Odyssey…

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WILLIAM H. TAYLOR ANACORTES COACH AND MENTOR

WILLIAM H. TAYLOR ANACORTES COACH AND MENTOR

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Many of us can point to one person or perhaps several people who played significant roles in our life. People who made the difference at a tipping point in our lives. Someone whose words or actions changed our attitude and the direction of our life for the better. For me, after my parents, it is a short list of those who had a very significant influence on my life. It includes a third grade teacher, a high school basketball coach, a…

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