We just flew to New Orleans where I gave a talk to the New Orleans trial lawyers. I had enough time traveling to read a couple of books. One of them was by Marlo Thomas Growing up Laughing which is a delightful book about her father Danny Thomas and others involved in comedy. I realize these are corny jokes, but I laughed at them anyway when I read them in the book I just got back from a pleasure trip. I…
On this day,December 7, 1941 the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor Hawaii and America entered World War II. I remember the day very well. It was a Sunday and I was in grade school. It seemed like time stopped that Sunday morning because all of the adults were in shock. If you remember President Kennedy being shot in Dallas and the reaction of people, you know what the reaction was back in 1941 to the news. It came to us not…
War is a terrible thing and World War I was a disastrous war with senseless deaths and little accomplished. It began in 1914 and didn’t end until 1918. The main fighting was on the Western Front. There were about 100,000 British, French, American and German troops along the length of the Western Front in 1914. "The Western Front" described a line between land controlled by the Germans on the East and the Allies on the West. There were miles of deep trench…
Today is the anniversary of the death of one of my personal hero's, Dorothy Day, who was born in Brooklyn, NY and died November 29, 1980 at age 84 years. If ever there was the common person’s saint, Dorothy is it. Unlike plastic saints this is a woman who struggled through life trying to find her purpose and making a lot of mistakes on the way. She is someone all of us sinners can relate to. She was raised in San…
The National Geographic channel has an excellent series on the sinking of the Titanic. Seehttp://www.nationalgeographic.com/ I watched a documentary and was very impressed with it. I had always assumed the reason for the sinking was simple and obvious: she hit an iceberg, but it turns out there is a lot more to the story than that. This was the largest ship ever built at the time. She was nearly 900 feet long, twenty five stories high and weighed 46.000 tons….
Nancy and Eric Anderson are resident travel and cruise columnists for Physicians Money Digest. They sent me an E-mail after seeing Anacortes, the town where I was born and raised, and the murals around town includinjg one of dad and my grandfather. As a result of their visit, they wrote a couple of wonderful short articles about Bill Mitchell, the artist who painted them, along with outstanding photos to go with the articles. See one article at http://www.physiciansmoneydigest.com/your-life/Anacortes-Washington-States-Painted-LadyYou will enjoy…
After saying everyone is sick of politics I can’t resist speaking about it anyway given the results of the November election. The main reason people are angry is the economy. We are a long ways from the thrill of electing the first black president and who was thoughtful, dignified and a decent man. The slow pace of job replacement and the housing crisis fuel the discontent. While his efforts at the health bill were appropriate he should have waited until…
I was watching a movie the other night involving coal miners and it made me reflect on the fact that I am the son of an immigrant Italian coal miner. After working for the Canadian Pacific Railroad laying track, my grandfather moved on to Coleman Alberta, Canada where he worked in the coal mines with his oldest son. He was soon joined by my father who began working in the mines at age fifteen years. Dad was injured on the…
The National Catholic Reporter this issue has an interview with Hans Kung. Father Kung is a Swiss Catholic priest and theologian as well as prolific writer. He has been a thorn in the Vatican’s side for some time over his writings about theology and the Vatican has rescinded his authority to teach Catholic theology. He teaches at a Swiss University as an emeritus professor. His priestly faculties have not been revoked in spite of his outspoken views critical of Vatican…
Last Sunday the reading at church was from Matthew 22:23-33 where the Sadducees presented Jesus with the argument of no resurrection through a story of seven brothers, who in turn, all married a dead brother's widow and Jesus's response to them. I was disappointed the priest failed to give any real explaination of the background and importance of this passage in his homily. There is so much meaning behind this passage. Here's my understanding of the background and key point of this passage. At this time in Jewish history there were four…
