Carl Muecke (pronounced Mick-ee) died this week in Flagstaff, Arizona. He was 89 years old and a retired federal district court judge. He had been born to German immigrants in New York and had worked in the Roosevelt WPA before he joined the marine corps. As a result of his experiences in the war and his background, he became a strong civil libertarian. After his discharge he moved to Phoenix to work as a newspaper reporter. When the paper folded…
I saw a tee shirt I thought I should buy for myself. It read: "To err is human..To forgive is Devine…Neither are my policy." There were two letters to the National Catholic Reporter by women that were responding to an article about women in the Catholic Church. One referred to the "stained glass ceiling" in talking about the Catholic church and its policies against women. Another letter to the editor expressed the complaint: "…the Church, …endlessly preaches about abortion and…
Mark Frost has written a national best seller, a true story, The Greatest Game Ever Played. The book was also made into a motion picture. It’s the true story about the 1913 U.S. Open when a twenty year old amateur player defeated the U.S. Open champion, Harry Vardon. The book has been described by Travel & Leisure Golf Magazine as "one of the best golf books ever written." I enjoyed the movie, but the book is very superior to the…
I admire Arianna Huffington’s clarity of expression, use of apt metaphors and her ability to go to the heart of issues. In her latest blog entry she discusses the ad Moveon.org ran about the testimony of General Petraeus regarding Iraq. The ad spells out clearly the concealment of facts and the false representations made at the time of his testimony. As a result, Rudy Giuliani was up in arms for "character assassination on an American general who is putting his…
Terry Gross has been the host of the NPR program Fresh Air for a long time. She conducts interviews and has conversations with writers, actors, musicians and artist’s. She collected her most interesting interviews in a book she titled All I Did Was Ask. It is an entertaining summary of conversations with people over the years of her radio work which I enjoyed reading. When she interviewed the actor Michael Caine he said some things I thought were informative. I…
Jane Wyman died last Monday. She was 93 years old. She was married to Ronald Regan in 1940 and they later divorced, which explains the bumper sticker during Regan’s campaign for the presidency: "Jane Wyman was right." What I admired about her was her refusal to say anything negative about Regan with the media after he was in politics. She was quoted as saying "…It’s bad taste to talk about ex-husbands and ex-wives… Also, I don’t know a damn thing…
I’ve written before about this administration’s dishonest use of doublespeak in order to give information in a false manner.(See posts of 11/29/06 & 1/13/07) Their use of political framing, with the advice of Karl Rove and Frank Luntz, is best illustrated by the infamous "Mission Accomplished" banner following our invasion of Iraq. Now General Petraeus has coined the word "ethnosectarian" instead of "civil war"to put the reality of civil war deaths in Iraq in a false light. The reality is…
My friend Carl Bettinger who practices law in New Mexico has been active in improv work to improve his trial skills. He recently recommended that I read Improv Wisdom, subtitled "Don’t prepare, just show up" written by Patricia Ryan Madson. Here are a few of the ideas and observations from this short, informative book: Remember "pisces mortiu solum cum flumine natant" (only dead fish go with the flow) Say yes: Cultivate phrases like "you are right, Good idea" etc Substitute…
As we all know, Galileo’s telescope observations and his calculations convinced him the earth revolved around the sun rather then the other way around. However, that was contrary to the teaching of the Catholic Church. After a Church trial in 1633 he was compelled to recant his claim, to be under house arrest for the rest of his life and to have his writings banned as well as his books burned. The Church insisted the Bible taught the opposite of…
The Los Angeles Times published an article about Catholic’s and confession. It says in the mid 1960’s thirty eight percent of Catholics went to confession at least once a month, but today only two percent go. Through most of the twentieth century Catholics viewed confession as a sacrament and a solemn obligation, but no longer. The article says there are now website’s where you can log in and anonymously list your sins. Of course, these are not sites sanctioned by…
