I think I am getting old and grouchy. On a recent trip I was struck by how intrusive into one’s own zone of privacy cell phones can be. I know this is not something unique for me and is probably overly sensitive on my part, but for some reason it was particularly bothersome on this trip. It started the evening before I left, when a woman decided to use some kind of cell phone with a two way communication device….
Hypocrisy is one of the chief human faults Jesus condemned and which American’s universally hate. Which brings us to Robert Bork who was once nominated for the United States Supreme court as a darling of the conservatives. He stood for all that was conservative. He advocated tort reform and what he saw as the horror of frivolous lawsuits flooding the civil justice system. He had written that "juries dispense lottery like windfalls" and compared the civil justice system to "Barbary…
I’ve repeatedly complained about the outrageous amounts of money paid to CEO’s of corporations even when their service has been a failure. (3/21/07) There is no end to this insanity and we have another example in the case of Blackstone Group LP who just announced that their CEO Stephen Schwarzman was paid $400 million last year. That’s almost double the combined compensation for the CEO’s of Wall Street’s five biggest investment banks. Not only that, he can cash in as…
Jesuit spiritual writer Mark Link S.J. has written a number of spiritual mediations in booklet form that are inspiring as well as informative. In his Jesus 2000, a contemporary walk with Jesus, he tells the story of the grub worms at the bottom of a pond who couldn’t understand why those who climbed up the stems of the water lillies never returned to tell them what they found. They selected one who was to climb up and then come back…
This is an e-mail from Seattle trial lawyer Jan Peterson which I would like to share with you because it is insightful and gives another perspective: Paul, I was at that meeting you refer too and was somewhat stunned to be included in the group of old founders by the younger bucks in our group as I have always thought of myself as a youngster mentored by the likes of my old employers Schroeter and Sullivan, and Art, and you,…
An E-mail from my friend, Seattle trial lawyer Jan Peterson, about retirement in response to my last post about it prompted me to search for this wonderful prayer which captures so well a healthy attitude about retirment generally: Prayer of an Aging Jesuit Dearest Lord, teach me to grow old gracefully. Help me to see that my community does me no wrong when gradually it takes from me my duties; when it no longer seems to seek my views Rid…
Discovery Magazine in the June 2007 issue published a list of speech errors composed by Scott Kim. He lists the following: Malapropisms which is substituting the wrong word for a similar sounding one. For example: "I am sure I have done everything in my power since I exploded the affair." Spoonerisms which is switching the first sounds of two close words. For example, "It is kisstomary to cuss the bride." A better example is George Bush’s May 4, 2007 Washington…
We are in Scottsdale where the temperature is perfect and the weather beautiful. We were at mass this morning, Sunday and the priest spoke of a Carmelite nun who said that even though she is in a convent where prayer and meditation is an around the clock activity there are annoyances that come with living with other people. I thought of one of my favorite saints, Theresa of Lisieux, the little flower, who became a saint by the way she…
I was at a professional meeting the other night which included friends I’ve known since I started practicing law. A couple were older then I am, another my age and others a little younger. As I looked around the room from my view point of seventy two years of age I was aware of our aging together as fellow trial lawyers. I remembered an article I had read in the 1991 issue of California Lawyer about Melvin Belli entitled "Lion…
I’m listening to a book on tape The Life You Save May be Your Own by Paul Elie. It deals with four Catholic writers and literary figures of the mid twentieth century, Flannery O’Connor, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton and Walker Percy. I am familiar with Day and Merton, having read their work and books about them, but not O’Connor or Percy. The book is well written and I am interested in their contribution to literature, religion and intelligent investigation of…
