Gazing into another time

A little piece in today’s newspaper led me to this blog. The short version: photographer finds excellent photographs from the 1930′s and 40′s among the other offerings at an estate sale and buys as many as she can. Then she follows up and finds that they were taken by Ellet N. Shepherd (1901 – 1965), Denver lawyer and judge. She gets the rest of the unsold photographs and has shared several of them with the rest of us on a blog.

On reading the article I clipped it out, grabbed my coffee and moved into the study to visit the blog. And I’ve been somewhere else for the last half hour as I look at the pictures and read some of the newspaper articles about Ellet Shepherd’s time as a prosecutor and a judge.

I’m visiting a Denver I have often wished I knew, a much smaller town that I might not have liked but suspect I would. It is I’m sure a longing driven by the desire for simplicity and certainty.

I have visited that place before, often by way of some of Sandra Dallas‘ novels – especially New Mercies. And I pored over the details of the town and people in Mainliner Denver (heck, I even met one of the lawyers in that case, who was still around many years later when I moved here fresh out of law school and passed the bar).

Honestly? One of these days I may just go down to the public library and read old local newspapers on microfilm or however they are stored now, just for the heck of it and not in search of anything special.

In the meantime, I am engaged with Judge Shepherd’s pictures, and the places I go when I look at them.

Read Full Post »

Facts, feelings, and bailout bubbles

I blogged the other day about my feelings, and now for the facts. Here’s a succint online article that summarizes US government bailouts of private sector firms/industries for the past 30 years. You’ll have to visit the site to see what the bubbles mean. Hint: they read from left to right and show the relative size of our government’s cost for each bailout. And a surprising number of those bailouts have happened THIS YEAR. In size and pace, this is unprecedented.

There’s also a story explaining how the US Treasury did out of each bailout: here. Both are courtesy of Pro Publica.

My feelings today? Happy because I just got a call from the doggie day care place, and they said that on his first morning there, Jasper is having fun and fitting in just fine. Which makes me smile, remembering that he’s a 12.5 pound guy and almost every other dog there is big: Labs, German Shepherds, Newfies, and the like. Cool. While I’m downtown working he’s playing and not just lying around the house.

Read Full Post »

Clutter and change and letting things slide

I mentioned here the other day that I’ve realized I pretty much hate almost all of my furniture.  I didn’t say so then, but the sad truth is, I’ve Allowed Things to Slide around the condo.  As Garrison Keillor explained in his recent newspaper column, they are at present working hard at cleaning over at his house because:

We are decent God-fearing people who somehow have Allowed Things To Slide and now we live among piles of books and paper, reams of driftage on the kitchen counter, boxes of mementos of a misspent life. Another month and we might go over the brink and become wild-eyed eccentrics living in rooms with narrow passages between the piles, cooking on a hotplate in the bathtub, the house reeking of cat dung.

At the Keillor house, they are having a fine time throwing out things.  At the condo, lately I’ve been having a fine time ignoring most of the mess while reading books, working on the computer to create the invoice which will get me paid for last month’s work, spending time with friends, and taking the trusty old Subaru in for its 105,000 mile mega-service.  To be fair, I’ve kept up with the laundry, and the kitchen and bathrooms are clean and presentable. 

Good old Garrison also explains I think why so many voters are excited about Senator Obama’s candidacy for the presidential nomination:

If the Democrats run on anger and the urge to pay back the God, Guns & Capital Gains Party, they’re likely to lose. Move on.  That’s my problem with Senator Clinton: If she becomes president, must we relive Renaissance Weekends and New Age narcissism, and then do we also get the return of Kenneth Starr and the Mellon man?

Heck, I’m a little excited too.  Although I sincerely believe that Senator Clinton is the better qualified candidate. 

Full column is below the fold if this link doesn’t work.

Read Full Post »

I spy

I took the “If You Were a Spy…“ quiz on gURL.com
		I am a… hannah senesh Does everyone always exclaim how brave and fearless you are? Maybe when you were two, you had no qualms about jumping off furniture or going down the big slide. Your spy personality is Hannah Senesh, meaning that you’re probably courageous, loyal and strong. Read more…Which spy are you?

HT to Ms. Kitty for this.  If you click on “read more” above, you’ll learn:

In 1943 Hannah Senesh was just 22-years old when she enlisted in the British army in the hopes of liberating her mother from Nazi rule. As one of the first females to volunteer as a paratrooper, Hannah proved herself fearless, however she didn’t make it further than her first mission–she was captured by German soldiers in Budapest. Her captors tried using torture to make her reveal her secret communication code.  . . . She never did. She went to her death keeping her secret and her comrades safe.

Today, Hannah’s memory lives on through her beautiful poetry and letters she wrote during World War II.

It’s an appropriate result to the quiz, in that lately I’ve been reading accounts of WWII spies.  Just because I’m interested.  Starting with The Wolves at the Door, about Virginia Hall.  Then there was A Life in Secrets about Vera Atkins who was not (exactly) a spy, but in charge of many.  Tonight I’ve just started reading Between Silk and Cyanide.   Waiting on the shelf:  Sisterhood of Spies.

Read Full Post »

Unruly judiciary

un • ru • ly – adjective, -li·er, li·est.
not submissive or conforming to rule; ungovernable; turbulent; intractable; refractory; lawless: an unruly class; an unruly wilderness.  *

It’s like the bad old days of policing in the USA:  bring in a suspect, interrogate him, and if he doesn’t say what you want, beat the crap out of him.  And then charge him with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct.

Pakistan’s President/General Musharraf has just done his own macro version of that.  Order judges to rule the way he wants – regardless of what the law says – and when they won’t play along, declare a state of emergency, including over the court system.  And say it’s because they were “unruly.”

According to BBC News:

The president, who is also head of the army, has said he declared the state of emergency because of a crisis caused by militant violence and an unruly judiciary.

Let’s see.  His strong political opponent finally returns to the country and coincidentally somebody bombs the welcoming streets full of celebrating people – somebody whom Musharraf’s troops and tame secret police just couldn’t learn about and stop beforehand.  Despite that ELEVEN BILLION US DOLLARS of “antiterrorist” aid Musharraf’s received from the Bush Administration since late 2001, there was this “militant violence.”  Uh-huh. 

And gosh, it must also just be a coincidence that the nation’s supreme court was about to issue a decision as to whether Musharraf’s re-election as President was voided by his failure to step aside as head of the armed forces as required by law.  But, well my goodness, what with all that unruliness going on, there just wasn’t a minute to lose to slap down the court system after individual justices refused to be pushed around by Musharraf’s administration.

Sounds to me like the only thing unruly about Pakistan’s judiciary is that its members have resisted the dictator’s attempts to push them around.

And don’t you just KNOW some of the farthest-out-there Bushies wish they could do the same thing to the United States courts?  I would like to think it could never happen here. 

I would also like to think that if it did, US lawyers would show the same courage and take it to the streets like our Pakistani counterparts. 

Also, for the record, courtesy of the BBC, here’s a list of the “emergency” restrictions Musharraf has put in place:

• Constitutional safeguards on life and liberty curtailed

• Police get wide powers of arrest

• Suspects can be denied access to lawyers

• Freedom of movement restricted

• Private TV stations taken off air

• New rules curtail media coverage of suicide bombings or militant activity

• Chief justice replaced, others made to swear oath of loyalty

• Supreme Court banned from rescinding emergency order

Full BBC story here if the link above doesn’t work. 

——————–

*”unruly.” Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1. Random House, Inc. 06 Nov. 2007.)http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/unruly

Read Full Post »

Dames and a princess

I have a hard time believing it when I’m sick. You know, that I’m really sick.

Oh, I never was one to show up for work with a 102 degree fever or a blinding headache, or during the worst days of a bad respiratory infection.

But even when the evidence of my senses is well into the “preponderance” area – even clear past “beyond a reasonable doubt” – I usually have this idea that I can’t be, like, really sick. Even after I’ve taken the indicated or prescribed drugs, checked with my doctor’s office, crawled into bed or plopped myself down on the living room sofa to wait for this too to pass. I believe it’s really some kind of mental funk or moral failure. Yeah, I know. But still.

Today I’m not running a serious fever, but I feel lousy. I didn’t sleep much last night, finally gave up trying, plopped down in the living room and watched my latest DVD from Netflix, Mrs. Henderson Presents. It ended a little before dawn, and I found the memorial service for Princess Diana – already in progress – being aired live on BBC America. I was stunned when it was rudely interrupted by a commercial for some kind of hot tub, but luckily I found that MSNBC was airing the service without such disgusting nonsense. I wouldn’t have gotten up early to watch the service, but I’m glad I got to see it.

During the final hymns I hopped off the love seat, had coffee, cereal, and ibuprofen, and read the morning paper. Not believing I’m really sick. Then finally went to bed and slept all morning. Now at 1 p.m., I’m up again, and wandering around the house with a headache. And things I need to do.

Because it’s not like I’m sick or anything.

More about Mrs. Henderson below the fold.

Read Full Post »

Will I need a passport?

 The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

—– L. P. Hartley

No scanners, or shredders, not so many lawyers per capita, and identity theft not aided by computers. 

After three full days slogging away at The Big Scan, I’m down to the paydirt of old personal and family letters and pictures.  Including the one above – and I’m not in it.  I’m probably older than you, but not that old.  

The picture is of a tailoring course taught by the Home Ec teacher at a public high school in the late 1940′s “for anyone interested.”

Interesting picture.  There could be a story there.  Or stories.  No passport required.

Read Full Post »

Self-evident

From the National Archives, respectfully submitted for your reading pleasure and thoughtful contemplation, by this native-born US citizen with a strong Anglophile streak. Don’t forget to click “continue reading,” look through the “Facts . . . submitted to a candid world” – and see if your eyebrows raise just a teensy bit at any point.

[**waving hi to my Brit friends!** ]

The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes;

Read Full Post »