Mitchell's Ramblings

Benjamin Franklin, Reluctant Revolutionary

2011-09-07T12:42:00.000-07:00

If Benjamin Franklin had died at the age of 68, he would probably be buried in Westminster Abbey. Until that time, there had been no more devout servant to the crown than he. The aftermath of the French and Indian War (or as Europeans call it, the Seven Years’ War), several of the colonies had hired Franklin to represent their interests in London, where he spent eleven years of his life.

It was only when Massachusetts’ Governor Hutchinson began to act in an incredibly high-handed way towards the colonists that Franklin first leaked embarrassing letters about Hutchinson’s administration in an effort to force the British government to change its policies, and when that was unsuccessful he broke with the crown.,When he arrived back in PA, he was so furious with the British government that he declared that if the colonists ran out of muskets and gunpowder, they would need to fight with bows and arrows rather than submit to the crown’s tax policies.

Franklin was only back in the colonies for a short time. Shortly after he signed the Declaration of Independence, he caught the next ship to France to serve as the American ambassador in Paris for the next eight years. The irony is that if only British parliamentarians had listened to Franklin in the 1770s, all this trouble could have been avoided. Franklin argued that there would be no colonial uprising if the colonists just had representation in Parliament. Quite a few other American legal scholars made the same argument.

Franklin anticipated that someday there would be more Englishmen living in North America than on the island of Britain, and he recommended that there be a peaceful separation rather like the division of the Roman Empire into the Western Empire ruled from Rome and the Eastern Empire ruled from Constantinople.

Ironically enough, it took the British government a bit more than a century to catch up to Franklin. What he advocated was virtually identical to the present-day British Commonwealth.

“Smiling” Albert Kesselring’s Sense of Humor

2011-09-07T12:41:00.000-07:00

In the last months of WWII in Europe, Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels’ favorite tactic was to claim that while the German “vengeance” weapons (V1 and V2) had done severe damage, in just a few weeks they would produce the V3, a weapon that would completely change the course of the conflict and win the war for Germany.

In mid-March 1945, less than 2 months before the end of the war, Field Marshall Albert Kesselring, received responsibility for the entire western front. Allied troops were at the Rhine, American troops had taken the bridge at Remagen, and any competent general could see that the war would be over very soon. So when Kesselring met his staff for the first time, he proved he could smile in the face of disaster. He said, “Good morning gentleman. *I* am the new V-3!”

Melinda and Melinda

2011-09-07T12:38:00.000-07:00

Two playwrights, one a comedian, and one a writer who specializes in tragedies, hear the story of a woman he walks in unannounced to a friends’ dinner party. The writers agree to make a story out of it. The movie stars Radha Mitchell (no relation), an excellent actress.

In viewing the tragic version of Melinda’s story, I found myself wondering Where on Earth did Woody Allen form his ideas about the legal system in this country, and to what extent do they reflect American society’s views as a whole? In the tragic version, Melinda is a married woman living in St Louis with her doctor husband and two children when she crosses the path of a charming international photographer. She leaves her husband and children to run away with this fellow who shortly thereafter proves to be a shameless womanizer who dumps her for someone else.

She then proves Kipling right: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. She buys a pistol, tracks down the philandering ex-boyfriend, and cold-bloodedly shoots him to death. For this, she spends a long death in prison, and now that she’s out of parole, she’s asking one of her old friends’ lawyer husbands to help her regain control of her children.

As I watched the film, I thought to myself, if she was really lucky and got a sweet plea deal from the prosecutor, she’d probably get sentenced 15 years and be out in eight. After all that time in prison, she wants to take back her children that she abandoned from the husband she left? At one point in the film, she visits her lawyer in the office to ask how the case is going and the lawyer responds, “Well, your husband has a lot of political influence.”

I am not the comic genius Woody Allen is, but if I were in that lawyer’s shoes I’d say “Listen you crazy b***, you left your kids for Mr. Excitement, proved you were capable of murder, and now you want your kids back? I don’t think so.” Then again, maybe saying such a thing to a woman who owns a pistol wouldn’t be the best idea in the world.

Being a Boston Restaurateur

2011-09-07T12:36:00.000-07:00

I’ve always enjoyed reading Bill Russell’s books, not just because of his exploits on hardwood playing for the Celtics. I find him to be a fascinating storyteller. He’s certainly lived an interesting life.

One of his best stories describes how he tried to cash in on his fame by opening a restaurant in Boston and putting his name on it. The first problem he ran into is that the local police expected to get free coffee at his establishment, and he wasn’t having any. Boston PD responded by zealously writing parking tickets for those parked illegally in the restaurant’s vicinity. This proved to be only a minor annoyance. Russell soon discovered his employees were legally blind. Despite making a habit of showing up in his restaurant and watching everyone like a hawk, he was not able to break even.
Shortly thereafter he got a visit from one of the local “wise guys.” Some organized crime figures told him that if he wanted to stay in business, they had a sure cure for his problem. This was coming from guys who’d owned multiple restaurants in Boston for many years. The solution, they informed him, was to catch someone stealing red-handed, and a few nights later, that thief would get jumped on the way home and receive a vicious beating calculated to put him in the hospital for a couple months with injuries that would never fully heal.

The key, this wise guy told him, was that they would suffer injuries severe enough that they would probably never be able to work the rest of their lifer and would have *visible* multiple injuries. The wise guys would then visit the thief’s hospital room, inform him there were no hard feelings, and they had a job guaranteed for life as the restaurant’s loss prevention manager. Nothing like hearing advice from a guy in a wheelchair with an eye patch and maybe a hook where his hand should be to deter future stealing. The boss even offered his services for free. Sadly, Bill Russell closed his restaurant rather than resorting to that measure.

Playing with a Ball of String

2011-09-07T12:34:00.000-07:00

I heard this one 30-some years ago and it works best if you tell it with its protagonist sounding like Truman Capote.

The story goes that a gentleman who was extremely devoted to his cat went on a trip and asked a neighbor of considerably gruffer sensibilities to cat-sit for Pussykins. On the first night, Pussykins’ owner calls and says, “How is my darling kitty kat?” To which the neighbor replies “Pussykins is dead. He got run over by a truck.” At this point, the cat-fanicer howls “How dare you be so insensitive? You should’ve told me Pussykins was on the roof playing with a ball of string and fell off, that you’d rushed him to the vet’s, and he was in surgery. The second night you should’ve told me they called in a cat specialist for a consult. The third night you could have told me that Pussykins didn’t make it.” Neighbor says, “OK.”

The second night, the cat owner gets a call from his neighbor. When the cat-owner asks why he called, neighbor says, “See last night, your mom was on the roof playing with a ball of string.”

The Question

2011-09-07T12:25:00.000-07:00

The answer is, Yasser Arafat.

The question is, has Ara Parshegian gained weight?

Ms. Everest and Mrs. Barbara

2011-09-03T10:41:00.000-07:00

When I read Winston Churchill’s My Early Life, I found the first chapter quite poignant. Churchill obviously loved his parents deeply, but his father Ranolph was an extremely stern taskmaster, and his mother Jennie Jerome was so distant from him that he described her as being like “the evening star.” Neglect by his parents was notable even by the standards of that time.

Perhaps his biggest childhood influence was his childhood nanny Elizabeth “Womb” Everest. He describes telling her of his “many troubles” (Editorial comment: Dude, your grandfather is Duke of Marlboro and High Commissioner of Ireland. How many people wouldn’t want to trade places with you?). Her role in his childhood is hard to exaggerate. He kept a picture of her in his bedroom until his death. When he read a quote in the memoirs of William Gibbons, author of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which read “If there be any, as I trust there are some, who rejoice that I live, to that dear and excellent woman their gratitude is due,” he thought of Mrs. Everest. “It shall be her epitaph,” he promised.

1895 was a tough year for Churchill. In Jan his father died shortly before Churchill was due to graduate from Sandhurst, the British military academy, so he never got to prove himself in his father’s eyes. The elder Churchill had died after a long bout with tertiary syphilis. That June, when Mrs. Everest’s sister wrote him that Womb was ill, he hurried to her bedside and was holding her hand when she died. Churchill not only organized the funeral, he paid for the headstone (she was from a family of modest means). Just recently, I learned that the day Churchill died, almost seventy years later, he had a picture of his beloved nanny in his bedroom.

I thought of this because a very dear friend of mine operates her own daycare center in San Diego, where she manages to provide an environment for preschoolers, which strikes me as ten times more fun than Disneyland could ever hope to be. There are numerous kiddies, tricycles in the backyard, good-natured doggies, and all kinds of treats coming from the kitchen. I recently heard that her retired Marine drill sergeant husband had to pinch hit for her, and at the end of a six hour ordeal his reaction was “Just shoot me now.” That’s the amazing part of Barbara’s ability with children: she makes it look easy.

Caring for children is like dropping a very big stone into a large pond—you never know how far the ripples will extend.

Booth and Lincoln: Beyond Ironic

2011-09-03T10:39:00.000-07:00

One wintry day in 1864, one of America’s foremost actors was trying to get on an evening train in Jersey City, NJ. A short distance away, a young man who was on his way home from his Harvard studies to visit his parents in DC slipped and almost fell into the gap between the station. The actor proved himself capable of quick thought and quicker action, grabbing the man’s shirt collar and bringing him to safety. The young man recognized the actor and thanked him profusely. That actor’s name was Edwin Booth, who was generally recognized to be the most talented member of the family. Sadly for him, after the night of Good Friday 1865, he would never be the most famous.

As a fervent supporter of the Union cause, Edwin was devastated by the news that his brother had murdered President Lincoln. Some days after the assassination, however, he got a letter from a friend of his who was serving on staff of General Ulysses S Grant that gave him some consolation. The friend informed Edwin Booth that one of his fellow staff officers had spoken often of Booth’s good deed, because he was the young man that Booth had saved from death or serious harm. His name was Robert Todd Lincoln, the President’s son.

Debauchery in Delaware County

2011-09-03T10:32:00.000-07:00

Delaware County lies on the northern border of Franklin County, where I live. I have handled several cases in this quieter part of Central Ohio. Recently a woman named Stephanie got herself seriously inebriated at a wedding party, and when the police arrived, committed an act that gives whole new meaning to the term disorderly conduct. She sprayed them… with breast milk. She was released from jail after acknowledging to the judge that she had a serious problem with alcohol (Did‘ja think?)

I recently learned that Ms. Stephanie is an elementary school teacher. I hope she doesn’t lose her job—I’ll bet all of her students were looking forward to the next scheduled show and tell.

Tower Fed

2011-09-03T10:27:00.000-07:00

When I was stationed at Fort Mead, Maryland, I did my banking at the local branch of the Tower Federal Credit Union, which is located inside the main building of the National Security Agency. It is in a hallway about 50 ft from the central security office where you will always find an armed guard and every exit to that building has at least two armed guards at all times. During banking hours, there are several thousand people inside that building, and since it’s on a military base, I can only imagine that a very highly armed SWAT team is only minutes away. I was therefore always amused by the fact that on the wall of the bank, there is a sign which reads, “Tower Federal will pay $5,000 for information leading to the arrest of anyone who robs this institution.” It’s been decades since I left NSA, but I’ve always wondered what breed of total mad men it would take to try to rob that particular federal branch.

Getting to Know My Great-Grandfather

2011-09-03T10:24:00.000-07:00

In recent years, I have managed to learn quite a bit about my paternal great-grandfather, William Terry Mitchell. I certainly never met him, because he died in 1921, thirty years before I showed up. I had known that he’d served as a Confederate officer, and the family tradition had it that he had fought at Shiloh, but it wasn’t until I really started digging through archives that I came up with some interesting facts.

William was born in 1835, and according to the census of 1860, he was not a slaveholder. He was, apparently, a slave overseer in one of the largest plantations in Giles County, TN, a fact that I’m sure would appall one of my politically correct sisters-in-law. He joined the 3rd Tennessee Infantry in April 1861, almost exactly the same time as Fort Sumter. There were 112 men in his company. He was one of four officers. Each company had a captain, first lieutenant, second lieutenant, and believe it or note, a junior second lieutenant. My great-grandfather was the junior second lieutenant. In the OSU main Library, I read a description of what that unit went through. Of 112 men, 9 died in battle and twelve of disease. That’s a twenty-two percent mortality rate.

His unit was at Fort Donaldson in February of 1862 when General Ulysses S Grant commanded that post’s unconditional surrender. Great Grandfather Mitchell was in no condition to fight that day: records indicate he was sick in quarters. As a Union POW, he spent some time in a federal army hospital in St Louis, then got shipped across the country to join his fellow officers at Jonson’s Island in Lake Eerie, where he spent the next seven months. They were all exchanged in September 1862. Incidentally, he lucked out in where he served his time: Johnson’s Island had the lowest death rate of any Union POW camp. I’m almost certain that either on his way to or returning from Johnson’s Island, great grandfather Mitchell passed through Columbus. He lived long enough to hear of my father’s birth in 1919. I can only wonder what he would have thought had someone told him that his grandson would settle in a Yankee city in 1958 and live there for more than half a century.

Over the next 2 years, 3rd Tennessee Infantry fought in the Vicksburg campaign as well as at Chickmagwa. I know that Great-granddad Mitchell had a stay at a Confederate Army hospital in Atlanta. In the Nashville archives, I saw he had a receipt for having drawn pay from the Confederate Army’s paymaster general. I certainly hope he spent that money in a big hurry. The 3rd Tennessee Infantry started the war with about 900 men. Over 700 were exchanged, and by the time of the Battle of Missionary Ridge, they were down to 270. Most, after seven months, said “OK, let’s pick up where we left off.”

I fervently wish great-grandfather Mitchell had kept a diary, or that someone had collected his letters. They would make fascinating reading a century and a half later. Lt Mitchell resigned his commission on Sep 7 1864, five days after Sherman took Atlanta. He did not leave a letter of resignation so I don’t know whether it was due to illness or recognition of the Confederacy’s dim prospects. Be that as it may, I would call that a very wise career move: Over the next three months, John Bell Hood, commander of the Confederate Army of Tennessee, established that as an army commander he was a great charge leader but a horrible strategist. He ordered his troops to carry out attacks that led his troops to a terribly bloody defeat at Franklin in November of 1864, and about 2 weeks later his command effectively disintegrated after a crushing defeat at the Battle of Nashville. There’s a book called From the Heat of Battle to the Fiery Cross that describes how by the Battle of Nashville, the Tennessee Infantry was down to 21 men ready for duty, and 3 “colored volunteers.”(I wish again that there were records for these three men, to find out their motivations for staying on when they probably could have run away by that time). Great-grandfather got out just in time.

Sometime in 1866, my great-grandfather took an oath of allegiance to the Union. I was mildly surprised to see the card identifying him lists his height at 6 feet and a half. Shows I’m not the only member of the family to reach that height. While I’m no admirer if the Confederate cause, I respect my great-grandfather’s tenacity.

There’s one more PS about my grandfather would appall my PC S-I-L big time. As a one-time confederate veteran, and an officer no less, there’s a strong possibility that great grandfather Mitchell might have joined an organization founded in Giles County either in late 65 or the summer of 66, which achieved notoriety not just throughout the state and country but internationally. Although they don’t keep membership rolls, there’s a distinct possibility my great-grandfather may have been a Klansmen.

Patrick Cleburn’s Plan

2011-09-03T10:21:00.000-07:00

Now that we’re in the midst of celebrations on the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, I think it’s an excellent idea for all students of history to closely examine the causes and consequences of that conflict. Last year I hear a friend of mine state quite vehemently that the Civil War was not about slavery, it was about succession and states’ rights.
In discussing anything with this particular friend, it is a good idea to make liberal use of the phrase, “You’re partially right.”

When somebody says the civil war was about states’ rights and succession, I say, What were they succeeding about? When they say the cause was economic, I say, what was the South’s economy based on? The key issue, in my mind, was the EXPANSION of slavery. Lincoln and the Republican party hated slavery but could tolerate it where it already existed. Their platform was to be unalterably opposed to any expansion of the “peculiar institution” into further territories.

In 1820, Congress thought they’d settled the issue by declaring there would be no slavery north of the line 36 degrees. It would allow slavery, but nowhere north of the current northern boundary of Oklahoma. 25 years later, America’s seizure of the northern half of Mexico reopened the issue. Henry Clay and Daniel Webster engineered the Compromise of 1850 that California would be a free state and slavery would be allowed into the new territories (however, as a practical matter, Clay knew that the land in those areas would be totally unsuited for a plantation society). Throughout the 1850s, some ambitious pro-slavery factions sponsored filibustering expeditions to seize Caribbean islands and parts of Central America to further expand slavery.

When Lincoln ran for president in 1860, he made his position clear: he was resolved to save the union. If he could do it by freeing all slaves, he would do so, if he could do it by freeing no slaves, he would do so, and if he could do it by freeing some and not others, he would do that as well. The statement might make Lincoln seem wishy-washy, but we must take into account what he did not say: he would not allow for the expansion of slavery, even if it meant fighting the bloodiest war in American history.

When Lincoln won the election of 1860 (with only 42% of the popular vote but a clear majority of the Electoral College), southern states, starting with SC in December 1860, started seceding from the Union. Lincoln made it clear he would not agree to peaceful succession. Fort Sumner followed, and 4 years later, 600,000 Americans were dead. So was the institution of slavery. The Union still stood.

For anyone who argues that slavery was not the key issue of the civil war would do well to consider the case of Confederate General Patrick Cleburn. He was born in Ireland in 1828, immigrated to the US at the age of 20. At the outbreak of the he war proved himself to be an extraordinarily talented soldier, rising from private to major general in just 3 years. On January 2, 1864, General Clayburn attended a meeting of senior officers of the Army of Tennessee, where he circulated an essay he’d written. Clayburn first pointed out that the Confederate cause was in a very bad way, a fact which no competent soldier could deny: Vicksburg had fallen, federal troops had taken Chattanooga and were poised to attack Atlanta, and the Confederate Dollar, which had been worth 40 cents US currency, could now be had for six cents. Confederate prospects were indeed bleak.

Cleburn pointed out that the Confederate’s most serious problem was a lack of manpower. Again, a self-evident proposition. He then proposed a solution which left his fellow officers speechless. He proposed any slave who volunteered to fight for the confederacy should receive freedom for themselves and their families. After Cleburn finished his presentation, the silence was deafening. One party present said it was as if someone had told a grossly inappropriate joke in front of a group of church deacons.

Ironically enough, several months later, Robert E Lee broached the subject of arming blacks in return for their freedom, as did Cabinet member Judah Benjamin (who had been a plantation owner but had sold it and his slaves before the war—good timing on his part).

On March 13, 1865, the Confederate Congress actually acted on Clayburn’s idea. Clayburn sadly had been killed in action four years earlier. By that time, however, the Southern cause was well and truly lost. Five days later, the Confederate Congress adjourned for the last time, and 15 days after that, Lee evacuated Richmond, the Confederate Capital. Comparisons between the Confederate cause and that of the Nazis 80 years later because they carry some highly emotional baggage. But the Confederate congress’ action that late in the day reminds me of Himler’s efforts to use Jewish concentration camp inmates as bargaining chips to secure his own safety. It’s a far-fetched historical “what-if” to wonder if Congress had manumitted slaves earlier in the war, and it’s useless. Slavery was the raison d’être of the Confederacy.

The Last Draftee

2011-09-03T10:20:00.000-07:00

Last month, the US Army passed a small milestone. It is now an entirely volunteer force. The last man drafted into the US Army retired at the age of 59 after almost 40 years of service. He was forced into the Army but found it to his liking: he retired a sergeant major. I have read some 1970s commentators stating America could not survive without a draft. I am reminded of the adage “Truth is the daughter of time.” Happy retirement, Command Sgt. Maj. Jeff Mellinger.

This Saturday in the Horseshoe

2011-09-03T10:17:00.001-07:00

Ohio State fans will have to get used to someone other than Tyrelle Prior taking snaps. Over three years, he proved himself to be a young man of positively amazing athletic ability but dubious morals and a fifth-rate intellect. What type of total moron endangers his athletic eligibility by accepting discounts on tattoos? OSU’s new starter QB will be either Joe Bauserman, largely inexperienced, or Braxton Miller, completely inexperienced.

This has inspired one Buckeye fan to an irreverent verse (to the tune of the old Spider-man theme song):

Bauserman, Bauserman,
If he can’t start, Braxton can,
Can he run? Can he throw?
Sad truth is: we don’t freakin’ know.

I was positively stunned to learn the name of the University of Akron’s starting QB. It is Clayton Moore. Good heavens, are we going up against the Lone Ranger? Will they play the opening movement of the William Tell overture? I guess as long as they don’t let him ride Silver onto the field, we’re probably in good shape.

Tales of the Horseshoe

2011-08-13T18:38:00.000-07:00

The month I turned 56, I had to accept the fact that I might never hear an Englishman brag about the size of Wembley stadium. I’d been hoping for this event to happen and had been waiting to point out that while Wembley can seat 90,000, Ohio Stadium can seat 102,329.The last time OSU had a football game that was not a sellout was in 1971.

Back in the olden days, OSU played its football games in Ohio Field, on Canfield and High, until Chic Harley made the Buckeyes such a popular team that a new facility was obviously called for. OSU president William Oxley Thompson declared the new stadium would have to be built in the floodplain next to the Olentangy River—he didn’t want it to tower over every other university building. That turned out to be the case to this very day. Ohio State’s Thompson Library (named for the president who made the decree), the 20th largest in the country, is on the top of a nearby hill sop it towers over the stadium. Almost a hundred years ago, the 100-yd dash was a popular sport, so originally, the stadium was built with one end open, making it a giant horseshoe. I recently amused myself by looking through old editorials insisting a stadium seating 61,110 would never be filled to capacity. How time proved them wrong. When I was a child capacity had expanded to 84,000, by the 90s it expanded to 95,000, and now it is over 100,000.

My readers from outside the US might wonder what would happen if Columbus ever got hit by a full-blown blizzard in late November and there were several inches of snow with a wind-chill factor of well below 0. That’s exactly what happened in 1950, when OSU played archrival Michigan in the late November Snow Ball. My advisor at OSU, Ray Hamilton, played in that game, and he is still none too happy about that outcome. OSU lost 9 to 3.

One of the more conspicuous features of the OSU campus is the power plant with two smokestacks at Neil and 17th. I haven’t measured them, but a utility worker told me they stand 250 ft high. One popular legend is that each was built to commemorate a virgin co-ed graduating from Ohio State.

Back in 1978, a cartoonist from the OSU newspaper the Lantern made another metaphorical use of those smokestacks. In August of that year, Pope Paul VI had died and there was endless TV coverage of the crowds gathered in St Peter’s Square awaiting the appearance of the white smoke announcing the election of another Pope. A month later, Pope John Paul I died and once again, there was endless coverage of the crowds watching for smoke again. Three months later, OSU’s legendary football coach Woody Hayes saw his career come to an ignominious end after 28 years when he was fired after the 1978 Gator Bowl. In a stroke of brilliance, the editorial cartoonist did a drawing of every sentient being in Columbus gathered around the stadium, staring up at the smokestacks, awaiting the appearance of white smoke to announce the election of a new football coach. After this last year’s pay-for-tattoos scandal, a young gentleman named Luke Fickel is going to discover he has a chance to be a monumental hero or a monumental goat. If he doesn’t know already, all OSU fans want (and expect) is constant perfection.

The Third Joe McCarthy

2011-08-13T18:31:00.000-07:00

One aspect of my Apserger’s is that when I was younger I sometimes had difficulty grasping that two very different people could have the same name. This came to my staunchly democratic parents’ opinion when I opined I thought Joseph McCarthy had done a great job. After the EMTs revived my mother (OK, a slight exaggeration)…

To put it mildly, my parents were no great admirers of the one-time Republican senator from Wisconsin. I had been referring to the baseball player and manager Joe McCarthy who won a pennant for the Chicago Cubs in 1929, and seven pennants and six World Series titles for the Yankees 1936-1943. His record of managing seven world champions still stands, though he shares it with Casey Stengel.

I recently learned about a third Joseph McCarthy who is in my opinion one of the great unsung heroes of WWII. He enlisted in the royal Canadian Air Force in May of 1941 and became a Lancaster pilot. What made him truly extraordinary is that he was the only Yank serving in the legendary 617 Squadron, better known as the Dambusters. Their most famous mission came 1942 against three hydroelectric dams in the Ruhr Valley. They were carrying specially designed bombs. To hit the dams just right, they had to come in at 60 ft off the water, flying at speeds of upward to 200 miles per hour, in the dead of night with everyone and their second cousin trying to shoot you down. The bombs they carried were designed to spin backwards upon release, 5,000 bombs that would skip across the water until they would hit the dam, sink to the bottom, and then explode.

19 planes made the Ruhr Valley attack. Eleven of them made it home. They blew up three Ruhr dams. Squadron commander Guy Gibson received the Victoria Cross and a training job, though he kept volunteering for duty until he was put back in at the end of the war when he was killed.

McCarthy survived the mission, one of the few Yanks ever invited to tea at Buckingham Palace, where he received the Distinguished Service Order. Such was McCarthy’s skill and bravery that he made it back to Buckingham Palace on two other occasions to receive a Distinguished Flying Cross and a Repeat Bar (there is no truth to the rumor that on his third visit, the domestic staff asked “You again?”)

I was interested that unlike most Americans, McCarthy stuck with the RCAF not only for the duration of the war but until he retired in 1961. I doubt anyone ever questioned whether he’d earned his pension. I understand that pilot McCarthy died in 1997 at the age of 78. Seeing as he was around at the 50th anniversary of the Dambuster’s raid, I’d say he was playing with the House’s money.

My Report on Ted Lewis

2011-08-13T18:14:00.000-07:00

When I was in 4th grade back in the 1964-65 school year, my teacher was a very fine lady named Mrs Abel. Mrs. Abel taught not only yours truly but all three of the other Mitchell bros, which proves to me that Mrs. A did not scare easy. Many years later I learned she taught for 42 years and went out “with her boots on”: she was teaching in the classroom until a week before she died.

All these years later I remember her as an extraordinarily fine teacher. She had us write reports that encouraged students to learn about research at a very tender age. I received an assignment to do a short report on band leader Ted Lewis ( 1892-1971) from Circleville Ohio. His trademark was the saying “Everybody happy” and whose biggest hit was “Me and My Shadow.” Once while passing thru Circleville I spied a small museum dedicated to his memory. What I did not find out until many years later is that though married, in his late 50s he took up with an aspiring actress 34 years his junior named Norma Jean Baker. As some of my readers might know, she later changed her name to Marylin Monroe. If only I’d known that back then, I could have made a much more interesting presentation.

George Patton on Opposing Viewpoints

2011-08-13T18:13:00.001-07:00

I’ve always admired the following quote from General George S Patton: “There are people who disagree with me… They are wrong.”

US Marshalls

2011-08-13T18:11:00.000-07:00

In almost all great military powers, there is a rank above general called Field Marshall. The Soviets had Marshall Zhukov, the French had Marshall Paton, the Italians had Marshall Bagdolio, and the British had Field Marhsall Montgomery. The only great power that does not follow this tradition is the US. Reason is during WWII, when it became clear the US Army would require a rank above general, that rank certainly would have been bestowed upon Army’s highest-ranking officer, the Chief of Staff, who was then Goerge Marshall. He let it be known on no uncertain terms that he did not want the title of Marshall Marshall. He was given the title General of Army, a rank since discontinued. Ironically enough, the only American to attain the rank of Field Marshall was Douglas MacArthur, who before WWII accepted the title for the Filipino Army.

Ward Hill Lamon, Unsung Hero

2011-08-13T18:09:00.000-07:00

Ward Hill Lamon became a lawyer as a young man and got to be good friends with a rising Illinois politician almost twenty years his senior named Abaraham Lincoln. Lamon had the scholarship to be a lawyer. He also had the stature and personality to be an extremely formidable bodyguard. Apparently, he was one of the only men in the state who towered over Lincoln (who was 6’4”). Lamon did not share all of Lincoln’s political views (he had reservations about abolition), but when Lincoln became the president-elect, Lamon became Lincoln’s bodyguard en route to DC. ON the last leg of the trip from Springfield to Washington, only one man accompanied Lincoln, and that was Lamon, packing his suual two pistols, a bowie knife, and a blackjack. Lamon had originally hoped to be named to an ambassadorship, but Lincoln insisted on making Lamon the US Marshall for the District of Columbia.

Lamon frequently was quite literally on Lincoln’s side. On one occasion, some ill-intentioned southern sympathizer pretended to shake Lincoln’s hand, then tried to injure him by using a vice grip. Lincoln cried out in pain, Lamon cold-cocked the scoundrel. On another occasion, Lamon patrolled the White House grounds and found a suspicious character hiding in the White House shrubbery. The man made a suspicious move that turned out to be his last: Lamon hit the guy so hard he killed him. Later that evening, the Secret Service discovered the man was a southern sympathizer carrying pistols in his pockets.

Not everyone liked Lamon. Some contemporaries describe him as being self-important. But Lincoln’s secreatay reported being deeply touched when he looked down the White Housen hall to Lincoln’s bedroom the night he won re-election. Lamon was stretched out on the floor asleep. No doubt with two pistols close at hand. Ironically enough, in early April of 1865, Lincoln, sent Lamon on an errand to the recently captured Confederate capitol of Richmond, Virginia. Lamon’s last words to the President were a warning not to go out, especially not to the theater.

Lamon was a political ally to Lincoln as well as a physical protector, and he worked on Lincoln’s re-election campaign in 1864. Political songs were in vogue back then, and one verse went like this:

A great good man is Ward Hill Lamon;
Abe is Pythias; he is Damon;
He's the President's protector,
He's his political protector,
Who?
Ward Hill Lamon. Ward Hill Lamon.

German Pension Plans in Tanzania

2011-08-13T18:07:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has seen either the African Queen or Out of Africa knows that during WWI, the fighting extended to The Dark Continent, where Britain, France, and Belgium helped themselves to the colonies Germany had set up in the 25 years after the Congress of Berlin. In an amazing fluke of history, the officer in charge of German East Africa (modern day Tanzania) happened to have an Army commander, Paul Von Lettow-Vorbeck, who turned out to be a singularly talented and tenacious leader. From the first day of the war he knew that he was completely on his own. He got almost no help from home in the entire war and with a force of 30 German officers, 100 NCOs, 1000 native troops and about 3000 porters, he launched a hit and run campaign against allied forces that frequently outnumbered him over 10 to 1. Few people thought that colony’s resistance would last more than a few weeks.

That campaign is just one more example of General Sherman’s statement that war is hell. The fighting devastated food production, led to widespread starvation, and when the Spanish Flu reached that part of Africa through 1918 and in 1919, it hit the European population hard and the African population even worse. Vorbeck did not lay down his arms until November 23, 1913, when he finally got word the Armistice had been signed 12 days earlier. Vorbeck and his men were the only German soldiers out of the millions of men who served in the Wehrmacht, were the only ones who got a victory parade when they went back to Berlin.

Back in Gemrnay, Vorceck was advanced from Lt Colonel to major general until he was forced into early retirement. Although not a professional politician, he was an excellent judge of character: he loathed Adolph Hitler from day 1. After the Fuhrer offered to make Vorbeck the ambassador to the Port of St James, Vorbeck indignantly refused. WWII was a terrible thing for the Vorbeck family. Both his sons were killed in the war, Vorbeck’s house was destroyed in a bombing raid and for the last years of the war, he lived in fear that the Gestapo surveillance he was subjected to might turn into arrest or execution. After 1945, Vorbeck’s family escaped starvation, ironically enough, by food parcels sent to him by his old adversary, South African Field Marshall Smuts. Vorbeck was blessed with extraordinary longevity. He lived into his nineties, outlasting the Nazis and even lived to see Tanzania become an independent country. In the last years of his life he was invited back to his old stomping grounds as a guest on a number of occasions.

There is one last PS to Vorbeck’s life which would make an excellent ending if they ever make a movie about him. Sometime in the late 1950s, some West German bureaucrat pointed out that quite a few of the Tanzanian natives had fought bravely for Germany and that they really ought to receive back pay and, in some case, pensions (there are all kinds of valid criticisms to be made over Germany’s government actions the past century, but they are really good about meeting pension obligations). A German delegation went back and tried to locate soldiers who had valid claims to German army serive (to the German government, I’m sure that qualified as a bit of petty cash—to Tanzanian natives, German army pay with 40 years’ interest was a king’s ransom. SA few Tanzanian men had the documents Vorceck had given them back in 1918. A few more still had their army uniforms, and a few others could literally show the scars of battle. Some very clever Wehrmacht veteran came up with a very clever test. They called applicants in one by one, gave them a broom, and asked them to perform the manual of arms. The records show that every man passed that test.

World Cup Consolation

2011-08-13T18:06:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, I sent an e-mail to an English attorney expressing my condolences for the English men’s football team losing to Germany in the World Cup tournament. His response was, “It’s fate. They win the football matches, we win the wars.” I’ll offer that wisdom to women soccer fans here in the US. Granted, every team in the world except Japan’s can only envy the US team for making it to the finals, and I thought we had a stronger team (and it’s my understanding that this was the first time the Japanese team has ever beaten the Americans in something like 20 tries).

I’ll note in passing that my family has supported women’s athletics for a very long time. Not only did my mother play high school basketball before WWII, my great-aunt Hazel played women’s varsity at Kansas University class of 1919. Finally, while the Japanse lady did get the better of our girls in the 2011 in the women’s world cup, we totally owned those bastards in 1945.

PS: This message comes to you from Columbus Ohio, hometown of both Curtis LeMay and Paul Tibdetz.

Defending Jimmy Hoffa (I)

2011-08-13T18:04:00.000-07:00

To my readers, I occasionally trade e-mails with an English lawyer. This is a story good enough to share with everyone.

Dear Glin,

Since we both do defense work, here’s a story about Jimmy Hoffa. In 1957, Robert Kennedy had set up a “Get Hoffa” squad in the Justice Department. In February of 1952, Hoffa contacted a NY lawyer named John Cheasty who was ex-Navy and secret service. Hoffa told Cheasty that if Cheasty would report on RFK’s activities, he would pay him $2,000 a month for a whole year. Hoffa had misjudged Cheasty’s character: he immediately reported the bribery attempt, and Kennedy gave him a position on the squad. Hoffa thought Cheasty was his mole, when in reality, Cheasty was RFK’s mole.

The conversations had been both recorded and filmed. Cheasty arranged a meeting with Hoffa from which Hoffa was led away from Dupont Circle in handcuffs. When Kennedy was asked what he’d do if Hoffa was acquitted, he responded he’d never consider the possibility in such an airtight case, but if it did happen, he’d “jump off the Capitol building.”

So tell me Glin, how would you defend that case?

PS: When Hoffa’s attorney Edwin Bennet Williams got Hoffa off an all accounts, he sent RFK a parachute.

Strawberries at Kroger’s

2011-08-13T18:02:00.002-07:00

I recently picked up a package of strawberries at Kroeger’s and managed to do so without any drama. Later that same day, I learned that back in 1932, there was a Kroeger’s in Detroit that employed “strawberry boys” at 32 cents an hour and paid them if, and only if, any strawberries arrived and could be unloaded. They were required to be on the job at 4:30 in the morning, and were not allowed to leave the loading dock for twelve hours. No strawberries, no pay, and almost three-quarters of their pay had to be used to buy Kroeger’s groceries.

That changed dramatically one hot spring morning when a nineteen year old kid showed up and organized the strawberry boys into demanding four hours’ guaranteed pay. Kroeger’s management feared that if they didn’t get their shipment unloaded immediately, it would spoil, giving the store a major loss. That nineteen year old kid was named Jimmy Hoffa, and it was the first of his battles as a labor organizer. It was not his last.

Is Murdoch Finished?

2011-08-13T18:02:00.001-07:00

I had occasion to listen to some of Rupert Murdoch’s testimony before the Parliamentary committee and I thought to myself, This guy has had an extraordinary run in recent decades, and I think he’s had more influence on journalism throughout the world since anyone since William Randolph Hearst. Now, however, he expects us to believe that neither he nor his son knew anything about editors making large pay-offs to police to information. Anyone who reads this is entitled to their own opinion, but I don’t think Murdoch will ever be perceived again as the fear-inspiring colossus he once was.

Amy Winehouse

2011-08-13T17:59:00.000-07:00

While Amy Winehouse was alive, every time I heard her singing, I would say to myself, “Get yourself to rehab, girl, yes, *yes*, YES.” Now that she’s dead, I just don’t have it in me to make any jokes about a talented young woman who died a lingering death from a terrible disease. I do, however, wonder who’s going to be the next good-looking corpse in show business, and I wonder why there’s not a Las Vegas betting line on whether or not Charlie Sheen will outlive Lindsay Lohan.

Deja What?

2011-08-13T17:58:00.001-07:00

Shortly after Congressman Andrew Weiner was forced to resign in disgrace after sending out embarrassing pictures of himself on the Internet, a second Democratic congressman, David Wu of California, has also resigned after sending photos of himself in a tiger suit. Am I the only person who is suffering from a serious case of Deja Wu?

General Eaker’s Speech

2011-08-13T17:55:00.000-07:00

Lieutenant General Ira Eaker was the first commander of the US Army’s 8th Air Force. When he arrived in Great Britain, he gave a speech which must have been a source of great relief to anyone who feared overblown oratory. He stepped up to the podium and said, “We’re not going to do much talking until we’ve done a lot more fighting. We hope that while we’re here we’ll act so that you’re glad we came.” Period. End of speech. If brevity is the soul of wit, then General Eaker is a soulful man.

I Saw Elvis on the Road to Jerusalem

2011-08-13T17:50:00.000-07:00

While taking a bus tour from Haifa to Jerusalem several years back, we made a stop at the Neve Ilan exit, where I discovered that there is an Israeli gentleman who is such a devoted fan of Elvis Presley that he constructed a diner filled entirely with Elvis memorabilia and where Elvis songs are played at all hours. The parking lot features a larger-than-life statue of Elvis itself. I guess that’s just one more indication of American pop culture worldwide.

Yertle… and Kellan

2011-08-13T17:47:00.000-07:00

When I was in the Navy two of my dearest friends were a couple named Mark and Barabara whose first child was a beautiful and rambunctious girl named Erin Nicole. From the first day I met Erin, I enjoyed being an honorary uncle and often got her children’s books. Then I’d stick around to hear Erin’s mom read them (Barbara has an amazingly sweet, soothing reading voice). Several years later, I saw my old friends again in San Diego. I’d been at sea for almost the entire last ten months, and seeing Mark, Barbara, and their now trio of kidsters, Erin Nicole (by then a precocious six-year-old), Seana Christine (almost three at the time), and Bryant Edward (4 months). I had the immense pleasure of hearing those kids’ dad read Yertle the Turtle by Dr Seuss as a bedtime story. I ask you, how many people have had the pleasure of hearing a US Marine read aloud a Dr. Seuss story?

“On the faraway island of Sala-ma-Sond,
Yertle the Turtle was king of the pond.”

For those of you who don’t remember, Yertle’s downfall is that he wants all the other turtles to form a turtle pyramid so he can see more and rule more.

I must say, dear old Dad gave an amazing performance reading the parts of old Yertle and the underling Mack. I thought to myself, the young Marine recruits in his charge would believe neither their eyes or their ears.

That was an extremely tough act to follow, but I had the immense pleasure of being guest reader of the story of Gertrude McFuzz.

“There once was a girl bird named Gertrude McFuzz
Who had the plainest bird-tail there was…”

Even twenty-some years later, I remember Erin Nicole giggling as I read. I thought if giggling was an Olympic event, she would certainly win multiple gold medals. I’m amazed how that experience stays with me more than two decades later. Erin and Seana are both college graduates now, and Seana has completed her first year of veterinary school at UC Davis. Bryant Edward, the tiny little fellow I remember Mom picking up and putting in his stroller, is about to graduate from college. He towers over not only me, but his dear old dad as well. If I want to be in a good place in my head, I put this memory on repeat.

Last month, my wonderful typist Marie Flynn got some very scary news: her four year old granddaughter Kallen had to go in for extensive open-heart surgery. Happily enough, it appears the doctors knew exactly what they were doing, though Kallen will have to go through a lengthy period of rest and recuperation. Having your entire sternum cut down the middle has got to be awfully rough on anyone of any age, much less a girl who is not quite ready for preschool. When I got the news, I thought about it for a bit and then gave Marie a copy of Yertle the Turtle and three other Dr Seuss books. I hope that will do something to lift her granddaughter’s spirits.

I will now pronounce two great lessons of life: 1) never miss a chance to read Dr Seuss to a little kid and 2) never miss a chance to get a copy of one of Dr Seuss’s books for a sick child.

An Illinois Joke

2011-07-26T14:44:00.001-07:00

Q: What did one Illini prison inmate say to the other?

A: I think the food was better in here when you were governor.

Of Illinois’ last 7 governors, 4 of them have done time in prison. That’s 3 Democrats and 1 Republican, if anyone’s keeping score.

Pink Ribbons and Jean’s Opinion

2011-07-26T14:42:00.000-07:00

Last year at the Ohio State spring football game, I was surprised to see the players were wearing not OSU’s traditional scarlet and grey, but pink and grey in honor of Stephanie Spielman. For the benefit of anyone not from Columbus, Ohio, Stephanie was an extraordinary lady whose husband Chris was an All-American linebacker at OSU who lasted more than a decade in the NFL. I wouldn’t say that it’s illegal to speak ill of the Speilmans in Ohio, but it’s simply not done.

Back in 1998, Stephanie was diagnosed with breast cancer and got treatment at the James Institute on campus at Ohio State, one of the nation’s finest cancer institutions. I remember meeting Stephanie and Chris once. Stephanie had lost her hair from chemotherapy, and Chris had shaved his head for moral support. Both spent a whole lot of time raising money for breast cancer research. Sadly, early last year, Stephanie’s breast cancer recurred and, despite the best possible treatment, she died early last spring. She left a husband and four teenage children. Stephanie Speilman certainly has left a fine legacy. There’s no one in central Ohio who’s ever raised money for breast cancer who doesn’t know who she is.

There’s a great deal of publicity about breast cancer treatment, with pink ribbons everywhere. A controversy surrounding the publicity is the slogan “Save the Tatas,” a marketing campaign directed towards the raunchier side of men. It occurred to me when I first saw this motto that some guys just *have* to do the right thing for the wrong reason. I once read a column wherein the writer claims the motto demeans both the women who suffer from breast cancer and the men who care for them.

After giving the matter some thought, I called my friend Jean from law school and asked for her opinion. She is certainly entitled to have one, since ten years ago she was afflicted with breast cancer herself. She told me she thought “Save the Tatas” was just plain funny. So I’ll differ to Jean on that question.

To all of my women friends, I sincerely hope Jean is the only one I will ever have who is ever *that* qualified to express an opinion on breast cancer.

Katarina Witt

2011-07-26T14:41:00.001-07:00

I always admired Katarina Witt’s beauty and athleticism as she won a gold medal in the Winter Olympics back in 1984. Since then, I’ve come to appreciate Witt’s wit as well.
An apocryphal story has it that Donald Trump once offered Ms. Witt his private phone number, which she declined. Thoroughly miffed, the story goes, Trump told her that *no one* had ever refused his number before. To which Ms. Witt is supposed to have replied, “Well somebody has to set the trend.”

I don’t know if that story is true, but I’d like to think it is. Perhaps we can start calling her the Red Baroness for shooting Donald down in flames.

If I ever meet that particular Olympian beauty, I’ll say to her, “Katarina, I’ve been shot down by every beautiful woman I’ve ever talked to. Wand to set a new trend?”

The Wit of Nellie Gwin

2011-07-26T14:39:00.000-07:00

Ms. Gwin was one of Charles II’s mistresses. Rumor has it that Charles’ last words were, “Let not poor Nellie starve.” Charles II is perhaps the wittiest monarch Great Britain ever had. One of his critics, John Wilmot, wrote of him:

"We have a pretty witty king
Whose word no man relies on
He never said a foolish thing
or ever did a wise one"

Charles responded, "That is very true, for my words are my own, but my acts, my ministers'.”

Apparently, Ms. Gwin’s wit made her a good match for Charles. Popular legend has it that once, when a heckler called her a whore, her coachman attacked the foul-mouthed scalawag and was in the process of giving him a beating when Nellie descended from her carriage and said, “I am a whore, find something else to fight about!” No wonder she got a pension of 1500 pounds after Charles’ death.

Crank Yankers’ Best

2011-07-26T14:38:00.001-07:00

When I spent a year in London back in the mid-80s, one of my all-time favorites was the BBC show “Spitting Image,” which was a brilliantly savage satire on all manner of public figures using puppets that, after a while, looked more like the people they were satirizing than the people themselves.

There was a short-lived American take on this show that I was fond of. Apparently a lot of people aren’t familiar with the Comedy Central show Crank Yankers, which uses puppets to portray people involved in prank phone calls. My favorite involved a young woman who called into a strip club and pretended to inquire about a job. After informing the management of her measurements, she told them there was one catch: after a glitter-mascara accident, she was completely blind. She knew this would not be a problem, because she had trained her seeing-eye dog, a German Shepherd named Busch, to go from table to table collecting tips! She went on to explain that she would do just fine as long as the bar did not use strobe lighting, because strobe lights made Butch go ballistic. The management finally began to get suspicious when she threatened them with a lawsuit under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Columbo, Petrovich, and Socrates

2011-07-26T14:32:00.000-07:00

I was saddened a few weeks ago to hear about the death of Peter Falk. He did some excellent comedies (check out him and Alan Arkin in The In-Laws), but he was always be remembered as the slovenly, disheveled homicide detective Lt. Columbo. In every episode of the show that bore his name, Columbo investigated murders committed by brilliant people who thought they had committed the perfect crime. At first, the lieutenant seems to be a totally bumbling buffoon, but bit by bit by bit by bit by bit, he methodically destroy their alibis and subterfuges, almost always using his famous tagline “Oh… there’s just one more thing.” (A great clip of him investigating real-life friend John Casavettes can be found here).

I recently read a review of a television production of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment in which the reviewer contemptuously derided the portrayal of the inspector as being a “second-rate Columbo.” I laughed out loud. I once read an article by William Link, one of the creators of Columbo. He said he’d been inspired by Dostoevsky’s work from the 19th century, particularly the investigator Porfiry Petrovich from the novel—you guessed it—Crime and Punishment.
If that’s not enough self-reference for you, one commentator pointed out that both Columbo and the other inspector have a forebearer dating back to earliest antiquity: Both use a method originated by Socrates in classical Athens in the 5th century BC.

A Bit of Good News on the Historical Front

2011-07-26T14:30:00.001-07:00

As a lifelong student of history, I am frequently exasperated by young people’s ignorance of my favorite topic. I was therefore absolutely delighted when my current collaborator William Hallal, a recent graduate of Ohio State, told me that his sophomore history teacher held a trial in his class over who was the more evil man: Adolf Hitler or Josef Stalin. I don’t want to try to decide the issue; however, I believe it’s essential for any educated person learn about the evil of both of those regimes. So kudos to Mr. Hallal and to Mrs. Emerson.

Happy Birthday, Baron von Steuben

2011-07-26T14:29:00.000-07:00

Friedrich Wilhelm Augustus von Steubenwas born 28- years ago in Madgeburg, Germany. Though he served in the armies of Frederick the Great, he was not, as he claimed to Goerge Washington, a former brigadier general—he never reached a rank higher than captain. He was, however, a superior troop trainer. When he arrived in Valley Forge in 1778, Washington put him in charge of training his soldiers. Steuben set to work training 100 carefully selected men and trained them to, in turn, be trainers. After they’d completed Steuben’s program, each of them was assigned 100 men, and by the springtime, the Continental Army was a completely different organization than it had been in the fall. The moral of the story (as I’m sure a friend of mine who’s a retired Marine D.I., whill appreciate), is never underestimate the impact of what one good drill instructor can accomplish.

Son of David

2011-07-26T14:25:00.001-07:00

There’s one bit of history of the British Royal Family that has always intrigued me: Mary Queen of Scots was a red-headed, blue-eyed beauty who stood 5’11”. Average height was a lot shorter then than it is today (paging Nicole Kidman!). Her second husband Lord Darnley, before his unsolved murder, was well over 6 feet. Her secretary David Rizzio was an Italian fellow who was short and swarthy (before his unsolved murder). Her son, James I of England (James VI of Scotland) had dark hair and eyes, and was hardly 5’ tall.

When James came to the throne of England after Elizabeth I’s death in 1863, he rapidly established himself as a wise, scholarly man. It was his idea to produce a translation of the Bible available to anyone who could read. The King James Bible stands as a testament to his reign almost 4 centuries after his death. James’ reputation for scholarship was such that some people referred to him as the Solomon of England.

King Louis of France’s rejoinder was, “Well might he be called Solomon, for he is the son of David.”

1942: Christmas on Guadacanal

2011-06-23T08:50:00.000-07:00

When WWII broke out, Barney Ross could have gotten himself a cushy PR gig with any of the services, but he wasn’t buying any. He retired from boxing at the ripe old age of ’32 and enlisted, volunteering for the USMC. Early in his service, his military career hit a major bump: some ill-intentioned Marine NCO had the temerity to make a nasty anti-Semitic remark to Ross’ face. Ross cold-cocked him. He was in danger of being court-martialed when a member of the board pointed out to his colleagues that this could give the Marines a public relations black eye. Ross was given the choice of either facing a court martial or shipping out with the first marine division. He eagerly volunteered for the latter.

By the end of 1942, he was seeing combat on Guadacanal. In one instance, he and his section of three other marines were ambushed, and all four of them were hit. Ross was the only one still capable of fighting back, and fight back he did. He used both his own weapons and the weapons of his fallen comrades until enemy fire ceased, then dragged his one surviving companion back to American lines for treatment (though the fellow outweighed him by 90 lbs).

The next day, a Marine patrol sent out to investigate discovered the bodies of Ross’ two other squad mates along with about two dozen dead Japanese. For his actions that day, Barney Ross received the Silver Star, the US Military’s 3rd highest decoration.

However, before he was medically evacuated from Guada Canal, Ross became part of Marine Corps legend. While on Guada Canal, he had become good friends with a Catholic priest, Father Frederick Gehring, who asked him to help out with the Christmas show he was putting on for the marines. This is a story which no Hollywood screenwriter would dare make up. Amongst his inventory of chaplain supplies, Fr Gehring discovered he’d been shipped a pipe organ, and he soon learned that the only competent organist on the island was none other than Barney Ross. So, striking a blow for American ecumenicalism, a Jew was the featured entertainer at the 1942 Guadacanal Christmas pageant.

This really makes me wonder what was going on at the Rosofsky house. Would he come home bloody from a street fight and then his mom would make him practiced the organ, or did the local boys taunt him so much about playing the organ that he demonstrated he could play with his fists as well?

In another note Hollywood would not dare imagine, after Ross had played his full repertoire of Christmas songs, Fr Gehring prevailed upon him to play one from his own tradition. Sp Barney Ross played his personal favorite, “My Yiddish Mama.” The US Marines have a thoroughly well-deserved reputation as extremely tough customers. However, guys there said years later that by the time Ross finished playing, there was not a dry eye in the house.

After returning to the States and being decorated personally by President Roosevelt, Ross found he had to face an even tougher opponent than he’d faced either in the ring or the battlefield: his wounds were so severe that he became addicted to morphine, which led to heroin addiction. He managed to make it to a rehab center, which saved his life.

Barney Ross only lived to be 57. In the last years of his life, he was a speaker to high schools about the dangers of drug addiction. To me it seems Ross got not just a second act in life, but a third one as well.

Dove-Ber Rosofsky

2011-06-23T08:49:00.000-07:00

F Scott Fitzgerald once said there are no second acts in American lives. He must never heard of Dove-Ber Rasofsky. Dove-ver, or Earl, was born in Chicago in 1909. His parents were Russian Jews who fled the pogroms Brest-Litosvst. His father was a Talmudic scholar and rabbi who had to operate a small vegetable store to support his wife and four children. In later years, his eldest son would recall that his father always urged him to be a scholar rather than a fighter and even told him, “Jews don’t fight back.” Doe-ver never, and I do mean never, got with the program on not fighting back. As he grew up, he proved to be extremely good with his fists.

In 1924, when Earl was still in his teens, life handed him an extremely bad break. His father was shot and killed when some thugs robbed his vegetable store. His mother had a nervous breakdown and was institutionalized, and Dove-Ver’s three younger siblings, Ida, Sam, and George, were all placed in an orphanage. Dove-ver decided he wanted his family back. At that point in his life, he was running with a *really* rough crowd, including a childhood friend named Jack Rubenstein who later shortened his name to Jack Ruby and moved off to Dallas, where everybody heard of him Nov 24, 1964.

It’s not clear exactly how deep his involvement was, but Dove-Ver knew some guys who knew Al Capone. Fortunately, he chose to make a living in an honest, but extremely tough game after making some success as an amateur fighter.

Even as an adult he was only 5’7” and his fighting weight was between 130-140 lbs. He was not a big man, but he could scrap. ,In September of 1929, two months before his 20th birthday, Dove-Ver started fighting professionally under the name of Barney Ross. Three and a half years later, he was lightweight champion of the world. By the time he hung up the gloves after 10 years as a professional fighter, he had 79 fights with 72 wins and only 4 losses. Nobody ever knocked him out. He’d won two world championship belts as a lightweight and a welterweight, and he succeeded in reuniting his family.

A Salute to Lance Corporal Ainsworth

2011-06-16T06:24:00.000-07:00

This past June 12 marked the 90th birthday of one of the unsung heroes of the Battle of Normandy. 67 years ago, a young man named Ainsworth went ashore in Normandy as part of the East Lancaster Regiment. He was not destined for high command—he made lance corporal twice and private on three occasions. However, as anyone with any knowledge of military history knows, it takes *all* kinds of people to win an award.

Ainsworth was a big man and a very talented amateur boxer. His greatest contribution to the war effort may have been his extraordinary gift for sneaking up behind German soldiers and capturing them. The fact he grabbed guys and took them back alive no doubt made him popular with his battalion’s intelligence section. I'm not sure exactly how many he captured, but it was enough to make him famous within his batalion for it. If you want to know how good he was, consider this: he’s still alive more than 66 years after the war ended. Need I say more?

Before the end of the Normandy campaign, his luck ran out: a blast from an artillery shell injured him badly enough to get him discharged from the Royal Army. Of course, in combat, luck is a relative thing: I’ve heard that he and the company cook were just about the only survivors of that outfit.

I once saw a picture of the senior Mr. Ainswroth with his late wife. I noticed two arms, two legs, no eye patch. He had a career teaching school, and he fathered three children. I thought to myself, Well, apparently the Krauts did not hit anything too important. In the US armed forces, any injury serious enough to get one out of combat but not cripple you for life is known as a “million-dollar wound.” Sounds like that’s what Lance Corporal Ainsworth got.

I’ve never met Mr. Ainsworth, but I’ve heard quite a bit about him because he had a son named Phillip who managed to attend Hartford College, Oxford, and while helping out with the Ohio State summer program there, managed to win the heart of a Ohio State co-ed named Diane Spring. I was tapped to be best man the day after St Patrick’s Day, 1978. That is one summer romance that turned out very well indeed: 33 years and two children later, Phil and Diane are still together.

Most of my American readers are familiar with Ed McMahon’s prize patrol giveaway: once a year, he’ll knock on some randomly (?) selected household and give them a check for ten million dollars. My readers will please forgive my bizarre sense of humor, but it has occurred to me that Private Ainsworth was a battlefield philanthropist for the Germans he captured. Anyone who’s ever seen Saving Private Ryan might have the smallest inkling of what a living hell combat in Normandy 1944 must have been like. In that situation as a German soldier, would you rather have a) all the tea in China b) all the gold in Fort Knox, c) all the Rockefeller money d) all of the above or e) a free ocean cruise to a POW camp in Canada where you’d get three meals and a bed for the next year? (all-time creditable towards German pensions).

I usually call my friend Phillip right before Christmas—December 24 is his birthday—and I think of his dad and the fact that somewhere in Germany, there are probably still a number of elderly men getting to celebrate Christmas with their families because LC Ainsworth took a prisoner didn’t kill them (any of those guys ever go to the trouble of sending Phil’s dad a Christmas card? Those ungrateful Kraut bastards!)

I’ve heard that only one German soldier, a soldier in the Waffen SS, who resisted, and LC Ainsworth had to kill him. I’ve also heard that’s an incident that haunts his dreams to this day.

I’ll probably never get to meet Phil’s dad. If I do, I’d like to say, Congratulations for making the world a better place. The destruction of Nazi Germany is one of the noblest causes man has ever fought for (I’m proud of the fact my father and uncle both fought in that conflict). What I’d say to him is if killing a man haunts him, then he should be glad he is not a complete sociopath. There are people who actually enjoy that sort of thing, and they are very scary creatures indeed. It’s a shame that German soldier passed up a chance at life, but that’s the choice he made. A whole lot of men had to die to win WWII.

To Whom it May Concern

2011-06-16T06:20:00.000-07:00

My father was trained as a gunner on a B-24 Liberator Heavy Bomber. Originally, he’d been assigned to be the ball turret gunner, but by the time his unit arrived in Great Britain in late December 1944, the Luftwaffe had taken such heavy losses that the 8th Army Air Force had moved the ball turret position from almost all B-24s, so Dad flew his missions as a waist gunner.

That was fine with my father. The ball turret position was by far the most difficult position to get out of in case a bomber crew had to get out of a damaged aircraft. There’s a poem, “Death of a Ball Turret Gunner” by Randall Jarell, that shows the danger well:

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

Because of that change, there was one less crewmember, and each bomber had an extra flak jacket. My father immediately claimed his plane’s surplus flak jacket and made a point of standing on top of it when they hit it into their targets. My father was 25, the oldest man on the plane. The youngest was a 19-year-old form Georgia named Blaylock who felt the need to adopt a tough-guy persona while on the ground. Maybe he was just trying to cover up the fact he was as scared as anyone else.

Anyhow, from the very first mission they flew, Blaylock said to my father, “Mitchell, if a bullet’s got your name on it a flak jacket won’t do you any good,” and felt the need to repeat the comment several times on subsequent missions. Finally my father said, “All right Blaylock, I don’t care about the bullet with my name on it. What bothers me are the ones that say ‘To Whom it May Concern.’” That was the last time Blaylock ever mentioned that particular subject.

The Last Chapter in Sal Mineo’s Life

2011-06-15T14:50:00.001-07:00

Anyone who’s seen Rebel Without a Cause will remember Sal Mineo’s performance as the sensitive young kid who meets a bad end when he is fatally shot by police. He came to a violent end in real life as well: he was stabbed to death.
I recently saw a biography of Mineo and browsed through it. Since I’d heard of his murder, I wondered if they’d ever found the culprit. I discovered that a pizza delivery guy named Lionel Williams was convicted of not only Mineo’s murder, but more than ten robberies, all carried out at knifepoint. He got a fifty-three year sentence, but he only served nine (and you wonder why people get cynical about the criminal justice system).

After the jury delivered its guilty verdict, Williams asked for a chance to speak, and after calling his public defender everything but a precious child of God, he felt the need to comment on one aspect of the prosecution’s case. Williams had multiple, visible tattoos, and the prosecutor had repeatedly pointed out that after the murder, Williams had purchased a new tattoo of a bloody knife on his arm. Mr. Williams just couldn’t help himself: he denounced the prosecutor for mentioning the tattoo, and added, “Besides, it looks nothing like the knife that killed him!” I don’t know how his defender managed to keep himself from banging his head on the counsel table.

The Best Twilight Zone Episode Never Written

2011-06-15T14:47:00.000-07:00

Many years ago there was a Twilight Zone episode that depicted an alien race making contact with earth. Initially the aliens proved quite helpful as they provided supplies which eliminated food shortages and starvation throughout the world. The visitors seemed quite altruistic, but a skeptical scientist found that the visitors brought with them a book entitled To Serve Man. It was only in the last minute of that episode, after the scientist had boarded a spaceship headed back to their homeland, that his assistant gave him the horrible news that To Serve Man was a cookbook.

It occurred to me that the episode ended where a fine one could begin. The human race has so many conflicting races, religions, and ethnicities that the only thing that could truly unite us is an external threat. For example, if someone had told Alex Haley’s great-great-great-great grandfather Kunta Kinte the day before he was kidnapped that he was an African, he would have had no comprehension of what that term meant. It won’t be until a hostile species shows up that homo sapiens will realize that we are all Earthlings.

Katyn, Jimmy Carter, and Kulaks

2011-06-15T14:45:00.000-07:00

I have been politically aware for just under 50 years now, and the two most mind-bogglingly clueless statements I’ve ever heard a President of the US make were both from James Earl Carter. During the 1976 presidential election campaign, he said that he hoped America would be able to overcome its “excessive fear of communism.” Seeing as how at the time he made that statement, the Soviet Union had the capability of hitting the US with several thousand nuclear warheads, I can only wonder about his definition of “excessive.”

Then in ‘79), when the USSR invaded Afghanistan, Carter was quoted as saying he had learned more in the past year about the Soviet Union than he ever had before. I was flabbergasted then, and am flabbergasted now, that an Naval Academy graduate, a man who spent more time in uniform than any other president that century (besides Eisenhower), could make that statement.

Since Carter had served as a professional Naval officer, I really wish someone could have sat down with him and shown him pictures of the Katyn Forest Massacre to educate him about what Soviets did to military officers of countries they found less than amenable. Thousands of Polish military were found with their hands bound behind their backs and bullet holes in their heads (along with police, government officials, and academics).

Furthermore, since after leaving the Navy Carter spent several years as a peanut farmer and achieved an impressive degree of success, I think he would have benefitted from an education in what happened to elderly survivors of the forced collectivization in Ukraine of the 1930s. Kulaks, or rich peasants, were either shot, systematically starved to death or shipped off to the gulag, from where only a miniscule percentage ever returned.

I happen to agree with G. Gordon Liddy’s judgment on Carter: “Fine Sunday school teacher, lousy president.”

Professor Fred Lansbury

2011-06-15T14:43:00.000-07:00

Back in 1977, I attended the Ohio State Summer Program at New College, Oxford, England. New College was founded in 1379—the Brits have some very interesting ideas about what’s new and old (as I have previously mentioned in the blog, the lovely Kate Beckinsale studied at New College as well). Part of the program was a history course in Elizabethan England, and I prevailed upon our instructor, a Professor Fred Lansbury, to let me teach the class on the Spanish Armada. He was amiable enough to let me save him a day’s work teaching, and now I can truly say I have lectured on Elizabethan history at Oxford.

I had noticed that when Professor Lansbury was in the New College dining hall, he was always drinking port. However, at the farewell banquet, he was drinking scotch. When I asked him about the change in drink, he informed me that he had developed gout and didn’t want to aggravate the situation any further. I made a mental note of that, and four months later sent Prof Lansbury a fruit basket along with a bottle of Scotch and a note which read:

There was a prof with a gout of a sort
That kept him from drinking his port
He had a student named Kent
With a poetic bent
Who said, "Here’s some scotch, take a snort!"

Two Old Friends

2011-06-15T14:40:00.000-07:00

Almost everyone has dreams of being rich, famous, or powerful, but I can only imagine what it must be like if you’re in that position knowing that a great many of the people you encounter are trying to get something from you. Clear back in 1957, then-Vice President Nixon met a man with whom he became friends who told him, “I’ll never ask you for anything.” That man was Woody Hayes (I heard that story straight from Woody’s lips).

Woody was every bit as good as his word. The two maintained a friendship for the rest of Woody’s life. I once heard Woody say he knew more about foreign policy than Nixon did, but Nixon knew more about football than Woody did. It’s entirely possible that both statements are true. Thirty years later, Nixon spoke at Woody’s funeral. He said, “When I met Woody, I wanted to talk football and he wanted to talk foreign policy. [pause] You know Woody—we talked foreign policy.”

While reading yesterday, I came across a story that made my jaw go slack. A few days before the 1976 Rose Bowl, Nixon sent Woody two dozen roses, along with a note saying OSU needed 24 points to beat UCLA (as well as complete an undefeated season and win the mythical national championship). Nixon’s note proved prescient: UCLA won that game 23-12.

Woody must have been devastated by the loss. He knew in his heart of hearts that would be his last chance for a national championship. He stayed in coaching for another two years, which turned out to be a mistake.

A postscript to that story: What, might you ask, did Woody do with the two dozen roses? He drove over to University Hospital and gave them away to 24 different patients. For the benefit of my readers who don’t give a hoot about football, maybe that will give you a small understanding about why so many people in Columbus loved Woody.

George Washington and Ora Judge

2011-06-15T14:36:00.000-07:00

To be a slave must be a hellish experience. However, if you were destined to be a slave in early 1797, it would be hard to have a better gig than Ora Judge did. She was one of George Washington’s domestic slaves in the Presidential Mansion in Philadelphia. (at that time the US capital was in Philadelphia—the White House wasn’t to be built until several years later). Ora Judge was smart enough to know that at the end of Washington’s second term in office, he and the entire household would be moving back to Mt Vernon. So Ora ran away with the help of a sympathetic sea captain and made it clear to Greenland…Greenland, New Hampshire.

When Washington first got word that one of his slaves had escaped to the Granite State, he sent a letter to the US Marshall for NH, asking for help in recovering his “property.” Interestingly enough, the Marshall wrote back, suggesting that Washington take a different tack because the people in New Hampshire, even back then, tended to take that whole “Live Free or Die” slogan very seriously. Washington then wrote a letter to Ora herself, telling her, in effect, that while he favored eventual abolition, she was setting a bad example for the rest of the slaves and would she please come on home? Ms Judge was not buying any. She stayed in NH and made a living as a seamstress.

Ironically enough, at the time Washington left office he only had another 2 years and nine months to live, and his will contained ironclad language that upon the death of his wife Martha, Mt, Vernon’s slaves would have the choice of manumission (freedom) or a chance to spend the rest of their lives at Mt Vernon being provided for from the state’s revenues.

Most people don’t realize that before the end of the Revolutionary War, Washington could be classified as a lukewarm abolitionist. He favored emancipation with compensation for slave owners. Mt Vernon’s records indicate that Washington’s estate was still making payments for elderly slaves into the early 1930s. Washington had a better retirement plan for his slaves than do a great many modern corporations.

Ora Judge spent the rest of her life in New Hampshire. She married and had two children before her husband deserted her. When she grew too old and sickly to work, the townspeople of Greenland provided for her. Shortly before her death, she gave an interview to an abolitionist newspaperman saying she had never regretted running away.

I believe the story of Ora Judge proves that the best stories are the ones you don’t find in the history books.

General Charles Napier—Feminist???

2011-06-11T07:10:00.001-07:00

I relish the story of British general Charles Napier’s duty in India for both its irony and political incorrectness. The Hindu custom of Sati is a funeral practice once popular in India. It goes like this: when the husband dies, you take the widow and her burn her on the funeral pyre. Which makes me think: Girlfriend, if you’re going to marry a Hindu guy, marry one a lot younger than you.

In today’s politically correct environment, British imperialists are the most evil men in world history. Perhaps one might expect to see them cackling over the funeral pyres and twirling their proverbial mustaches. Thanks to General Charles Napier, overseer of India for the British army, this was not the case.

British reaction to the Sati practice was actually quite mixed. The Church of England was having a conniption fit, saying you can’t allow this to happen. The East India trading company was saying it’s not involved with business, leave them be. Napier took matters into his own hands. Napier says, “OK, you have your customs, we have ours. In my culture, when a man burns a woman, we HANG him. You can build your pyres, and next door we'll build our gallows. We'll respect your tradition as long as you can abide by ours.” Afterward, the practice of Sati saw a sharp decrease.

I wonder about two things: 1 did Charles Napier qualify as a feminist? And 2) if they made a movie, wouldn’t it be cool if the American actor Charles Napier played him?

The Ironic Legacy of Rear Admiral Horace Lambert A. Hood

2011-06-11T07:08:00.000-07:00

This story might only be of interest to hardcore military history geeks like myself. In designing warships, designers must always deal with the triangle of firepower, mobility, and protection. American battleships of the 20th century tended to be slow but well-armed and well-protected. German battleships tended to be fast with good protection and relatively light armament. Since one of the Royal Navy’s primary missions was commerce protection, it made perfect sense to design some ships as battle cruisers with excellent speed, great firepower, but very little protection, which can backfire horribly.

That’s something Admiral Spee found out in the Battle of the Falkland Islands in 1914. A year and a half later, the Royal Navy committed a serious blunder at the Battle of Jutland—they put battle cruisers in the battle line alongside better-protected battleships to exchange fire with German battleships, and the results for the cruise was positively ghastly. In very short succession, the Queen Mary, the Invincible, and the Indefatigable, battle cruisers all, exploded.

When a 1,000 lb shell explodes in a ship’s ammunition magazines, the results are immediate, spectacular, and quite unfortunate for the crews (Admiral Beatty famously commented to his flag secretary on the explosion, “Something seems to be wrong with our bloody ships today, Chapfield.”).Out of 3,300 crewmen, there were only 16 survivors. The rear admiral in charge of that squadron, Horace Lambert A. Hood, was not one of them. Hood was the great-great grandson of one of the Royal Navy’s greatest 18th century admirals, the legendary Samuel Hood. Horace Hood was only 35 and likely would have had an extraordinary career if not for mis-positioning of ships by the Royal Navy.

I only learned about the 20th century Admiral Hood a few days ago. His legacy is ironic beyond words. After WWI, the US, Great Britain, and Japan tended to convert would-be battle cruisers into aircraft carriers, which proved to be an excellent idea, since aircraft proved to be the decisive weapon in WWII. However, in 1920, British government asked Admiral Hood’s widow (they had only had five years together) to christen a new battle cruiser named The Hood. Whether it’s named for Horace Hood, his legendary great-grandfather, or both is anyone’s guess.

The Hood had the same battlecruiser design as its predecessors , a speed around 30 knots (very fast), 8 15-inch guns that fired off thousand-pound rounds, and very thin armor. In May of 1941, the Hood was sent out to the strait between Greenland and Iceland to intercept the new German battleship the Bismarck. The morning of May 24, they Hood made contact with the Bismarck, and after exchanging a few rounds, a missile lodged in the Hood’s ammunition magazine. Of a crew of 1400 men, there were 8 survivors.

Lady Hood was alive, and she no doubt would have heard of the devastation. One hopes that the dry fatalism of British culture would have helped her accept that history repeats itself as long as nations refuse to learn from their mistakes.

The Falklands, Margaret Thatcher, and Ray Hamilton

2011-06-11T05:27:00.000-07:00

Next year will mark the 30th anniversary of the Falkland Island campaigns, yet another example of how truth is much stranger than fiction. Who would have believed that Great Britain and Argentina would fight a war over such an obscure piece of real estate? My favorite cartoon from that era is from Bloom County, when the Opus the penguin explains he has relatives in the combat zone, and since penguins have no instinct for aggression, they find the whole conflict very confusing. The last panel has Falklands penguins poking their head out of a foxhole with missiles exploding overhead, screaming, “Was it something we said?”

I am sure the families of the men found it less humorous—649 Argentineans and 257 British were killed in the conflict. My British correspondent will be happy to know American sympathies were largely with the British (I once saw a news report about a British girl worried about her father. I’m sure Argentineans were worried about their fathers too, but they wouldn’t have been able to speak English with such a cute accent). The British were, after all, our allies throughout most of the 20th century. Indeed, German chancellor Otto von Bismarck once commented that the most important fact of the 20th century was that the Americans and the British speak the same language.

(If I had had the ear of the Argentine leadership in early 1982, I would have told them that they would be much better advised to agitate in favor of free elections for self-determination on the Falklands, then send a business agent to Port Stanley announcing they should pay x thousand pounds to each islander if the election turned out to be pro-Argentine—If you’re living on a windswept rocky island that sheep could barely live on, would you rather be poor on the Falkands or rich in the Haberdines? If you couldn’t make the islanders a financial offer they couldn’t refuse, the next step would be to hire Cuban troops as mercenaries. Whereas everyone hates the Argentine Junta, the left wing is so enamored with Che Guevara’s legacy that it would be impossible for them to object to Cubans going anywhere and doing anything they want. Maybe that wouldn’t have worked, but it would have been a lot more sensible than thousands of young men dying.)

One other result of the Falkland Islands conflict was the worldwide respect for Margaret Thatcher as being the most badass PM the Brits have had since Churchill retired. I’m reminded of a story I once heard from my undergraduate academic advisor, a fine black gentleman named Ray Hamilton. Ray is now old and grey, but in his youth he was a very formidable figure. He played varsity football four years at Ohio State (25 years after graduation, the University gave him a great job—Ohio State takes care of its own).

When Ray was just a little kidster in a tough neighborhood in Warren, Ohio, he was once set upon by several older kids who roughed him up considerably and chased him home. He managed to lock the door behind him, although he had to listen to his tormentors stand near the front porch and talk trash about how they were going to get him. In Ray’s neighborhood, kids learned very early to either get tough or accept that life would be a living hell—in those parts of town, people do not call the cops. So Ray found a cinderblock inside the house, carried it up to the second floor, and threw it out the window, narrowly missing one of his tormentors. They ran screaming for their lives. A few minutes later, those hellions’ mother showed up. After realizing the methods Ray had used to keep her boys at bay, she dragged them from the front porch, shouting, “Don’t mess with him, he’s CRAZY!” Those particular guys never hassled Ray again.

I don’t know what Lady Thatcher would think of me comparing her to an OSU football star, but I’m sure I wasn’t the only one to think “My God, she’s ready to fight a war over the most obscure piece of real estate on earth?” What would she be willing to do if the stakes were higher? Don’t mess with her, she’s CRAZY!

The Inspiring Story of Annie Glenn’s Stutter

2011-06-11T05:25:00.000-07:00

John Glenn has to rate as one of the most famous and accomplished Ohioans of the 21st century. After a great career as a Marine fighter pilot in both WWII and Korea, he was one of the original 7 astronauts on the Mercury program and was the first American to orbit the Earth. Did I mention he had 139 combat missions?

After retiring from the Marine Corps, he served 4 terms as a US Senator from Ohio. Then, at the age of 76, he became the world’s oldest astronaut when he returned to space onboard the space shuttle Discovery. Among the ironies of his life is that his closest brush with death came not as a fighter pilot or an astronaut, but in 1964, when he slipped in his own bathroom, hit his head, and almost died.

While every Ohioan knows his name, if not for the fact that Annie, his wife of (check) close to 60 years, had a stutter, he may have been known as one of America’s greatest presidents.

In 1976, Jimmy Carter had Glenn on his list of choices for a running mate. I’ve heard that the story is when Jimmy’s wife Rosalynd learned that Annie Glenn had a severe stutter, she prevailed on her husband to pick Senator Walter Mondale of Minnesota instead. This gave Mondale the leg up to win the Democratic nomination for the 1984 Presidential Election. Election night 1984 was not a happy one for Democrats. Mondale managed to take one state and the District of Columbia, Regan took the other 49.

In January of 1984, the political writer Richard Reeves wrote a fictional account og Ronald Regan flying back to California at the end of his one term in office and mentions that he’d lost in a landslide to John Glenn. It’s not certain that Glenn could have defeated Regan. However, it’s hard to imagine he could have done worse than Mondale did. I can imagine that quite a few undecided voters would have preferred voting for a real-life fighter pilot over one who played one in the movies. Had that actually happened and Glenn had served two terms, he would have left office shortly after the disillusion of the Soviet Union. We would have one more Ohioan president in our history books, only he would have been remembered as one of the great ones.

Believe it or not,I have a personal link to John Glenn. Glenn’s fourth grade teacher was a woman named Ms. Quillen who later became Mrs. Hannahs, and who was still teaching at Barrington Road Elementary school more than 30 years later, in 1963. My third-grade teacher was Mrs. Hannis. My classmates and I heard a lot about John Glenn as a youngster. Apparently he was an extraordinarily funny student whom everybody liked. Even then he seemed destined for greatness.

The Quarry Tragedy

2011-06-11T05:16:00.000-07:00

The word “tragedy” is greatly misused in the modern vernacular. It has come to mean any unfortunate event, whereas it originally applied to a tragic hero who, through his own hubris, meets a terrible fate. The story of the Quarry brothers is one f the best modern examples I know of to illustrate the original meaning.

If an athlete has the fortune to be the eleventh most talented player in the NBA, the result is a multi-millionaire likely to whine about not being a started in the NBA all-star game. If you are the eleventh best heavyweight in the world, you are likely to end up brain-damaged and dead ahead of your time. If Jerry Quarry had been black, he’d be remembered as a very good fighter not quite of championship caliber. Consider his record. In the mid-sixties he was the only fighter in the history of the Golden Gloves tournament to knock out every one of his opponents. He fought former two-time champion Floyd Patterson twice, with one win by decision and one draw. He fought his way to the finals of a WBA championship tournament only to lose a split decision to Jimmy Ellis. He knocked out Mack Foster when Foster was rated a number one contender, he knocked out Ernie Shaver in one round (the same Ernie Shavers who once decked Larry Holmes), he lost a narrow decision to Muhammad Ali, and once, giving away 20 lbs, gave Ron Lyle a one-sided boxing lesson for a 12-round decision (the same Ron Lyle who fought Ali even for ten rounds and who once decked George Foreman twice). Once, English heavyweight Jack Brodell called Quarry a bum before their bout in London. That match lasted 58 seconds, including both an 8-count and a full ten-count. George Foreman says today that Jerry Quarry was the only fighter he made a point of avoiding.

Ironically enough, if Quarry had been twenty lbs lighter, or if boxing had a junior heavyweight division of under 205 lbs, Jerry Quarry would have been a world champion. Instead, since his best fighting weight was between 196 and 200 pounds, he was always up against bigger, heavier opponents with longer reach than he had. He lost two fights to Muhammad Ali, two to Joe Frasier, and one to Ken Norton in a fifth-round TKO (Quarry was, perhaps, foolish to take that fight on short notice).

Because of his repeated losses in big bouts, Jerry Quarry became a punchline to many. Richard Pryor even made a joke about how Quarry “love getting beat up by n******s”. Quarry stayed in the game far too long, and he paid for it with his health, mentally and physically.

But it wasn’t just Jerry who was ruined by boxing. Jerry’s younger brother Mike was a talented light heavyweight who, after winning 38 straight fights against opposition of questionable quality, managed to get a shot at light heavyweight champion Bob Foster. 4th round, he suffered a frighteningly severe knockout. If he’d had another way to make a living, or good sense, he would have found another way to make a living. Instead, he traded on the Quarry name, and it gave him too many paydays to walk away from.

Jerry and Mike’s younger brother Bobby was a talented athlete who figured he could parlay his name into easy boxing money, although he lacked his older brothers’ skill and work ethic. The fact that he was blind in one eye didn’t help his career much either. Bobby managed to come up with a good, albeit ironic nickname: when a sportswriter asked him if he wanted to be known by any particular moniker, he replied, “Yeah. I wanna be known as Booby “The Rocket Scientist” Quarry.” Any real rocker scientist would know if you’re going to make a living as a fighter, it’s an excellent idea to plan an early retirement. Whoever said boxing is the red light district of sports was dead-on.

The end result of this is that all three Quarry brothers wound up punch-drunk, which sounds like someone who had too much fun at the office Christmas party until you call it by its Latin name of dementia pugilistica. For the last ten years of their lives, Jerry and Mike needed full-time care, rendered incapable of even tying their own shoes. One of the saddest aspects of the whole story is that Jerry and Mike frequently sparred one another, and those sparring sessions usually degenerated into brawls, with Mike coming out worse for the wear. In one of his last moments of lucidity, Harry apologized to Mike for hitting him so hard. He had to live with the knowledge that he was rapidly losing his mind and because of him, his brother would have to suffer the same fate.

My Favorite Day in Bethel

2011-06-03T09:29:00.000-07:00

Frequent readers and freinds will know that I once worked as a public defender in Bethel, Alaska, a large city in the center of the Yukon/Kuskokwim Delta. Whenever someone would ask, "What is today?" I would reply, "It's the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day..."

Herman Cain

2011-06-03T09:24:00.000-07:00

One of the differences between the American political system and countries with a strictly parliamentary system is that here individual candidates have a great deal more power than the party leadership. The result of this is that a candidate can seemingly come of nowhere to seek the party nomination for President (as did Carter in '76 and Ike in '52).

This year's surprise just might be Herman Cain, who, in recent polls, is very close to 2nd place in the Republican field. (After the early primaries, it is usually the top two vote-getters who battle for the nomination.) Mr. Cain gave a good account of himself in the 1st debate, has a more extensive background in business than any candidate we've had in recent decades, and is, in my opinion, certainly not the *worst* candidate running. And he certainly knows how to make a good pizza.

I also think it is pretty hilarious that some people are referring to him as a "dark horse" candidate. (A recent poll of black lawyers in the Franklin County courthouse finds that 100% of them think that is just plain funny. So anybody tempted to give a PC speech, lighten up!)

Stan “The Man” Musial

2011-05-31T07:34:00.001-07:00

I was recently amazed when my collaborator admitted he had never heard of Stan Musial. My father has always told me that it’s OK for men to cry, but his advice is a little more enlightened than his actions. If my father cries it’s almost always because a member of his immediate family has died. The only exception to this I remember was the day in September 1963 when Stan Musial played his last game with the St Louis Cardinals. Copious tears were running down my father’s cheeks. Since he and Stand are almost exactly the same age, over 90, I’m sure it was wrenching for my father to say goodbye to a piece of his youth.

Stan Musial played 22 years with the Cardinals. His lifetime batting average of .331 is one of the best ever, and he hit 275 home runs. At the time of his retirement, he led the National League with a career total of 3,630 hits. Amazingly, that total included 1850 at home and 1850 on the road. Those figures would be even higher if not for the year he spent serving in the Navy in WWII. It wasn’t just that Musial played well. The reason why he is a living legend in St Louis is the way he conducted himself. In 22 years, Musial was never ejected from a game. Henry Aaron enjoys telling the story that when barnstorming down South, he frequently had to eat his meals in the team bus. Stan Musial was the only white player who would grab a plate and join him. Aaron and Musial had an excellent relationship as part-time teammates. I’m sure the thought of facing Musial and Aaron at successive at-bats was enough to make pitchers wake up screaming.

There’s one other Musial story that’s still told almost half a century after his retirement. In one game, the Cardinals were trailing by 2 runs in the ninth inning during a tight pennant race. They managed to put two men on when Musial came up to bat and hit a screaming line drive down the right foul line good for what seemed like at least double when the umpire unexpectedly called the hit foul. While Musial was rounding second base, the entire Cardinals bench emptied, and 24 enraged Cardinals and their manager were screaming at the umpire calling him everything but a precious child of God.
Slightly bewildered, Musial ambled in from second base, and when he heard what had happened, he raised his hand and said, “Guys, he called the ball foul.” Shamed into silence, the fuming cardinals returned to the dugout and two of his teammates returned to their bases. On the next pitch, Musial hit another screaming line drive that cleared the fence for a home run and a Cardinal victory. There was only one Stan “The Man” Musial.

A Case of Yapese Justice

2011-05-31T07:19:00.000-07:00

The recent stories about Dominique Strauss-Khan’s legal difficulties reminded me of a case I read about on the island of Yap in the Federated States of Micronesia. The whole issue of sexual assault is a hot-button issue in the last decade. It seems to be a problem in every known society. Jane Goodall’s studies of chimpanzees indicate that males of that species are capable of egregious, aggressive conduct towards females. That’s why I believe socialization of young males by their families and communities is so important.

I once knew a very attractive young woman named Ann Marchant who had traveled a great deal throughout Europe in her teens. I once told her that she had the makings of a good doctoral dissertation on how different European nationalities respond to cute blonds. The Norwegians, she told me, were polite, and had a mellow, almost androgynous, outlook, the Italians were vocal, if in a friendly way, but she found Greeks to be vocal and downright nasty.

My younger brother Mark once attended a community college in Kansas where he informed me there was no friction at all between blacks and whites. They were united by a common enemy: Arab exchange students who had got their ideas about American women from watching too many episodes of Dallas. They seemed to think any woman who was bearing as much as her ankles was asking for it. Their attitude caused serious tension and several fistfights.

But back to Yap. I have passed the bar for Ohio, federal courts for the southern district of Ohio, and in 1999 I passed the bar for the Federated States of Micronesia. While studying for the bar in Micronesia, I read about 2 cases of sexual assault on the island of Yap, where I once served as public defender. In both cases, some very ill-mannered young men had assaulted a Yapese. The retaliation of the woman’s family was swift and severe. Every male relative of the victim—fathers, brothers, uncles and cousins—got together tracked the guy down, jumped him, and took turns beating him within an inch of his life. One guy had his hand smashed with a 2x4, one guy was beaten with fists until he could no longer stand, used as a soccer ball until he wasn’t moving, and then the assembled multitude used him as a public urinal.

As a trained lawyer, I’m supposed to deplore lynch mob justice, but in this case, I rather wonder if in Yap it doesn’t make perfect sense. If you attack a woman, retribution will be swift, certain, and severe, an object lesson not only to the perpetrator and any would-be wrongdoer, but also as an object lesson to young boys: not only do you not mistreat women, it is both your right and affirmative duty to personally punish anyone who does.

Academic Stress in Perspective

2011-05-31T07:15:00.000-07:00

I spent 45 weeks as a student at the Defense Language Institute at the Presidio Monterey from 1980-1981 studying Arabic. The workload was heavy and the dropout rate was about 50%. The thought of being dropped from the course and shipped out to sea as a non-rated seaman terrified me. One day in class, the guy sitting next to me, a really strange guy named Goegre Zimmerman, had a complete anxiety attack and got sent back in training. So not only was I afraid, I was afraid of being too afraid. I learned that the Presidio Monterey’s Health Center had a counseling center that I could visit gratis. I figured I would do a little bit of what in the Navy is called “preventive maintenance”—that’s when you fix a part before it is due to break down. I would visit the counselor each week and count my marbles to make sure I wasn’t losing them.

Some of you may know the name of the counselor I saw was a bad actor named Frank King who was court-martialed for making advances on his female patients and spent 6 years in Leavenworth. I also saw a man named Frank Thompson who gave me some good advice. When I told him about my anxiety over not completing the course (at that time, the date of June 4, 1984 seemed to be an eternity into the future), he told me that years before, while completing his doctorate, he had been in an academic program so intense that the joke was if you could complete it, you really don’t need it. He looked around and saw a great many bright graduate students who were training to be able to help other people who appeared to be coming apart at the seams themselves. He went to see the departmental chairman, a gentleman well-up in years who told him a story that’s a real doozy.

This departmental chair had served in the navy during WWII, and on Feb 19, 1945, he was in charge of a landing craft headed towards Iwo Jima. As a landing craft approached the beach, he could see that not all the gunfire was headed inland. Japanese machine guns were firing out at landing craft any way they could and he was quite understandably terrified. The thought occurred to him that he had been that terrified once before. Years before, in grad school, he’d had a prof notorious for assigning voluminous readings and then assigning essays on an unrelated topic. Before took that exam, he was absolutely terrified. He made a resolution that when he got back from the war, he would never let any professor scare him as badly as a Japanese machine gun and artillery fire. He pointed out to me then that 3 years at sea would be scary, but not that scary, and if I could accept that, I’d be well on my way to completing the course, which I did.

The Misadventures of Stephen Foster

2011-05-31T07:12:00.000-07:00

Some of my readers might have heard me mention a client named Stephen Foster who is, at this moment, doing his *fourth* stint in the Ohio correctional system. I represented Stephen on one of his cases. In a conference with the visiting judge, the judge commented, “He should have stayed in his Old Kentucky Home.” I said, “I gotcha beat judge: he should have stayed on the old Swanee River.”

The paradox of Delaware County’s Stephen Foster—he’s a white guy, shaved head who stands somewhere over 6’6” and probably weighs over 300 lbs, but he’s never been convicted of any act of violence, and I’ve never once heard of him committing a violent act. He’s a mellow fellow who just wants to enjoy shooting up heroin, and he would be in no trouble at all if folks could just understand his need to pass bad checks to pay for his supply. At this point, I think Stevie poses more of a threat to himself than he does to society. During one stay in Delaware County Jail, he was so badly injured (under mysterious circumstances) that his civil attorney managed to win a settlement of over 100,000 from the county. That 6-figure windfall actually lasted Stevie a little over a month before he either blew it on women or shot it up his arm.

During his current stretch in prison, he was approached by the local chapter of the Aryan Brotherhood about becoming a member. Apparently, they liked a guy who had a tattoo across his midsection that read “Corn-fed Honkie.” While I do not approve of prison gangs of any race or ethnicity, I can certainly see how an inmate would like to have other guys watching his back. Unfortunately for Stevie, one of his hometown buddies showed up in the same prison and said something that really put Stevie behind the 8-ball. He said to Stevie, “What are you doing with the Aryan Brotherhood when you’ve got a black girlfriend and a half-black kid?” Within an hour, Stevie’s status changed from the Brotherhood’s newest prospective member to its top target for a shiv. Apparently, when the Brotherhood says “F*** N(egroes)”, that was not what they had in mind.

How Cousin Reginald Saved the World

2011-05-24T11:10:00.000-07:00

If Reginald J. Mitchell was a cousin, he was VERY distant one.

Very good article from Slate.

OBL's Funeral and Nietzche

2011-05-24T11:08:00.000-07:00

I've heard some commentators question why the US gave Osama bin Laden a Muslim funeral. I think Nietzsche has the answer: "Whosoever fights monsters should take care that they not turn into one."

Of Lions and Lawyers

2011-05-24T11:04:00.000-07:00

Here's a tip of the hat to my classmate Jean Box, who told me this one.

Once upon a time, a young lion woke up at dawn and headed out to hunt. On his way out of the Pride's den, he passed the oldest lion in the Pride, who was busily licking the lower terminus of his alimentary canal. That night, when he returned from hunting, he again saw the old lion, still licking the lower terminus of his alimentary canal.The next morning,he saw the same thing. So, the young lion says,"Hey, Grandpa, what's going on?"

To which the old lion replies, "It's awful. Last week, I got so desperate, I ate a lawyer....and I'm *still* trying to get the taste out of my mouth!"

The Batusi?

2011-05-24T11:01:00.000-07:00

Remember kids, don't drink and dance!

PS yes, that is Jill St. John.

Captain Kirk Throwing Stones

2011-05-24T10:58:00.000-07:00

I guess that martial arts is not a major part of the cirriculum at Starfleet Academy. That's Ted Cassidy (a.k.a."Lurch") as Gorn.

PS After sending the link to this video to friends and family, I received a reply from my friend Susan Miller(whom I call "Lady Haha")that read, "I'm on the right track baby, fighting Gorn this way hey."

I Weep for NicolaTHEGREAT41's Generation

2011-05-24T10:49:00.000-07:00

A group of American students in Greece put President Truman on trial for war crimes and convicted him (with a simulated Hirohito as part of the prosecution.)

---

Subject: Reply from nicolaTHEgreat41 on "Hiroshima: Right or Wrong?"
From: service@youtube.com
To: kentamitchell@hotmail.com
Date: Mon, 16 May 2011 08:19:41 -0700

nicolaTHEgreat41 has replied to your comment on Hiroshima: Right or Wrong?:
@kentamitchell
look I am a student in an American school in Athens, Greece
Right today we had an event called the Truman trial. I was part of the prosecution, as I was Hirohito.
the trial went on from 9 am to 3.30 pm, and Truman was found guilty for war crimes...
haven't u heard of the Hague convention of 1889, where it was clearly stated that bombs that killed by sufficating [sic] the targets & have a radioactivity were illegal.
The a-bomb kills various generations, whereas hirohitos killings only1

---

Irony is dead.

I'm Glad My Parents Didn't Name Me "Peter"

2011-05-24T10:46:00.000-07:00

....because in 1986, that was the names of the characters played by *both* Tom Cruise in "Top Gun" and Tom Selleck in "Three Men and a Baby".

Tough Day in Court?

2011-05-24T10:43:00.000-07:00

My fellow members of the bar: if you had a tough day in court, at least Cardinal Richelieu didn't show up.

I wonder how many people know that John Cleese started out as a solicitor, only to discover that he could make LOTS more money as a comic and actor.

Kangaroos in Jerusalem???

2011-05-24T10:37:00.000-07:00

I've been to Jerusalem twice,and I never saw a kangaroo. :)

PS Michangelo did not paint "The Last Supper"; Leonardo da Vinvi did. Now we know why!

Ms. Stevens' Lucky Evening at Hillel

2011-05-24T10:34:00.001-07:00

Way back in the late 70s (when I earning my B.A. and M.A. from Ohio State), a young Jewish gal from Cincinnati named Shelley Stevens majoring in art at OSU had a part-time gig selling tickets at the local Jewish center, the Hillel. One evening, she met a nice Israeli doctor named Herschlag, and one thing led to another. They got married, moved to Jerusalem, and thirty years ago this June 9th, had a daughter they named Natalie. She grew up to be beautiful, smart, and talented, and decided, for professional reasons, to use the last name Portman.

I often wonder why the Hillel Foundation doesn't ask Ms. Portman to use her name in promoting social events, as in, "We can't guarantee that you'll met the love of your life here, but you never know.”

Randy "Macho Man" Savage's Columbus Connection

2011-05-24T10:26:00.000-07:00

Somehow, I would find it *very* difficult to imagine that many of my readers would be much fans of Professional Wrestling. (What has 100 arms, 100 legs, 200 teeth and a combined IQ of 100? 50 professional wrestling fans). I was saddened however, to hear that Randy "Macho Man" Stevens died recently in a car accident at the age of 58. Who would have imagined he was a nice boy from Columbus, Ohio named Randy Poffo would become one of the biggest names in the history of professional wrestling? (The again, with a last name like that, no wonder he turned out to be a tough guy.)

My younger brother Mark was a very good high school wrestler, and he hates, hates, *hates* pro wrestling. I just accept it as a lowbrow artform- a cartoon with human, rather than animated, characters. Anyhow, I always enjoyed the Macho Man's showmanship—one writer once speculated that Savage's wardrobe designer must've been a *longtime* user of LSD. (Sad to say, apparently both he and his stage “manager"/real life wife "the lovely Elizabeth" had problems with cocaine. "Elizabeth" died of an overdose several years ago.)

I never met Randy Stevens, but early one morning in the Fall of 1987, I learned he *definitely* had a sense of humor. I was finishing up my law degree at Notre Dame, and Stevens was on a South Bend radio station's early morning show promoting a "Wrestlemania" event that was to be held at the Notre Dame Atheletic & Convocation Center. He did his usual shtick, which was to sound like a guy who has just ingested a gallon of Turkish espresso: OOOOOOHHHHH YEEEEEAAAAAH!!! After doing the promo, the DJ asked the Macho Man if he'd like to do the weather report. Which he did—in character. "There's a COOOOOOOLD FRONT comin' down from CAAAAANAAAAADAAAAA!!!.."

It was with some difficulty that I managed to keep from falling out of bed laughing.

RIP Randy

A Long-Delayed Hug

2011-05-24T10:08:00.000-07:00

One of the great joys of my life is my honorary niece Erin Nicole. Everybody else refers to her by just her first name, but I figured after visiting her when she was a grade schooler, that it might be helpful to remind her that her middle name is not “Stop-Running-Around,” as in “Erin-stop-running-around,” or my personal favorite, “Erin-if-you-don’t-stop-running-around-you’ll-trip-over-Uncle-Kent’s-legs-and-hurt-yourself-and-Uncle-Kent-will-feel-bad.”

The first time I ever saw Erin Nicole was on a late day in May when Ronald Regan was still president. I had just returned from a Navy deployment onboard the USS LaSalle on the Indian Ocean. Her dear old Dad, a career United States Marine, was gently rocking her on his knee and softly crooning to her. To anyone who didn’t speak English, I’m sure it would have sounded like a lullaby. Ironically enough, while the tune was by Johann Brahms, the lyrics would have made Jerry Bruckheimer cringe. He was telling her, in the most graphic detail imaginable, what he would do to anyone who might harm her: “I’ll rip their living guts out, yes I will.” The effect was simultaneously touching, totally hilarious, and downright scary all at once. I thought to myself, If I hold that kid, I better not drop her.

During the course of my visit, I asked Mom if it was OK if I held Erin Nicole. She said OK. I asked Dad if I might hold Erin Nicole. He said OK. Unfortunately, I had not asked three-and-a-half month Erin Nicole if it was OK. A fraction of a second after I’d picked her up, she voiced her displeasure with a decibel level that made me think she might have a bright future as an air ride siren. I was amazed that a child that young could be that strong. She began to squirm right out of my arms. Happily enough, I returned her to Mom before any lasting damage was done.

I didn’t get to see Erin again until almost four years later when I was in LA for a training seminar. I went down to see my friends, where Dad was stationed at San Diego RTC. I had a wonderful time catching up with my friends and admiring Erin’s collection of stuffed animals (Years before, when she was pregnant with Erin Nicole, I’d heard Erin Nicole’s mother express concern that Erin Nicole’s height might cause her some grief. Erin’s mom, who is six feet tall barefoot, told me that she reached her full height very young, and the other kids used to tease her and call her giraffe. That Christmas, a friend and I were in a mall shopping, passing a Toys R Us when we spotted an enormous stuffed giraffe. We purchased “High Pockets” and gave it to Erin’s parents, explaining that kids might call her giraffe someday, but if a giraffe was her favorite toy, it wouldn’t hurt her feelings. Upon viewing Erin Nicole’s stuffed animal collection, it occurred to me that her parents must have an awful lot of friends who thought the same thing, because apparently everyone at the Fort Mead Navy detachment and US Marine Headquarters had had the same idea. Her collection almost constituted a stuffed version of the San Diego Zoo. I tried to count the number of stuffed toys she had, but gave up counting when I reached the eighties).

Erin’s family and I had a great time catching up, and that morning, I figured I’d try to be a low-maintenance breakfast guest—I just helped myself to a small carton of yogurt. Big mistake on my part. I discovered that Erin had thought of the carton as her yogurt, and she voiced her displeasure with a volume that probably startled some on the other side of the Mexican border. Erin’s mom showed up and told Erin to go to her room, which she did. Five minutes later, Erin emerged from her room. Mom asked her, “Erin, can you say you’re sorry?” Dead silence. Erin Nicole gave me the fiercest glare I have ever seen on the face of a four-year-old girl. Erin’s mom said “Erin, go back to your room.” A few minutes later, Erin emerged a second time, and when her mother asked her, “Can you say you’re sorry?”, Erin said, “I’m sorry.” Mom asked, “Can you give Uncle Kent a hug?” Erin once again fixed me with another withering glare. She didn’t say it, but I’m certain she was thinking, You low-down, dirty rotten, yogurt-stealing so-and-so. You steal my yogurt, and then you want a hug? I don’t think so.

I didn’t manage to make it out to San Diego again until March of 1990, when the USS Cape Cod, the ship I was teaching on, pulled into San Diego. When I responded to a dinner invitation, I was touched beyond words when I saw six-year-old Erin and her almost three-year-old sister Seana Christine (off to the side was baby Brian, not quite four months at the time of my visit), jumping up and down and yelling, “It’s Uncle Kent again! It’s Uncle Kent again!” I thought to myself, all the President gets when he arrives somewhere is the marine band playing Hail to the Chief. Personally, I think I was better off.

As always, I had a great time with Erin and Seana, and I happened to be present when bedtime rolled around. What I saw, I could not possibly make up. Dear old Dad called a “Family Formation” and said, “OK Erin, give your father a hug.” Erin gave her dad a hug. “Give your mother a hug.” She gave Mom a hug. “Give your sister a hug.” She gave Seana a hug. “Give Brian a hug.” She gave her three-and-half month old brother a hug. Then Dad asked, “Do you *want* to give Uncle Kent a hug?” Erin tilted her head 45 degrees to one side, tilted it back 45 degrees the other side (I later told her parents I thought she might be a Foxtrot Lima India Romeo Tango—spell it out), and after careful consideration, she gave her Uncle Kent a big hug.

I had been waiting for that hug for darn near six years. It was well worth it.

I’d been quite impressed up to that point, but then Dad pulled off a bit of bedtime showmanship that astonished me. He picked up his daughter in his arms and said, “One for the money,” he swung her nearly up to the ceiling, then back down to waist level, “two for the show. Three to get ready—” another gentle swing up to ceiling level—“And four to go!” And in a fraction of a second he gently laid her in her bed, smooched her on her forehead, and turned out the light.

I often think of Erin, her brother, and her sister. It is my opinion that when fate picked out their parents, they hit the jackpot twice.

They Didn't Get to Keep the Gold, but They All Got Silver Stars

2011-05-16T19:01:00.000-07:00

Frank Fenno was one of the finest American submarine commanders to serve in the Second World War. During the course of his career he was awarded the Bronze Star, the Silver Star, the Distinguished Service Medal and *three* Navy Crosses (that’s just one down from the Congressional Medal of Honor). He retired as a Rear Admiral and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. I read of his most amazing mission many years ago, and I’ve often wondered why no one made a film about it.

In early 1942, Fenno was Lieutenant Commander of a new submarine, the USS Trout (SS-202). He was ordered to carry a load of 25 tons of anti-aircraft ammunition to the besieged island of Corrigador in Manila Bay. Since the Japanese had that island completely surrounded, it’s hard to imagine the courage it took for the captain and crew of the Trout to approach Corrigador under cover of darkness and unload their cargo of desperately needed supplies.

Once they’d finished unloading, Commander Fenno discovered he had a new problem: the Trout needed over 20 tons of ballast to enable it to quickly submerge. Believe it or not, the US Army authorities on the island denied him permission to take on that many tons of sandbags because sandbags were in short supply. Fortunately, an aid to the Philippine High Commissioner had a solution. Before evacuating government offices in Manila, the American authorities had transferred over 20 tons of gold and silver to Corrigador. They loaded 5 tons, over 10,800 lbs of gold and close to 15,000 of silver. The gold alone was worth 6 million (by 1942’s standards; today it would be worth aprox $200 million).

The next night, the Trout stealthily slipped past the blockading Japanese ships and headed for Honolulu. There were between 60 and 70 men on board the Trout. I can only wonder if any of them thought, “What the hell?” The Portugese are neutral. Let’s head for Macao and see if they take gold bars at the casinos!” They managed to make it to Honolulu unscathed, sinking a Japanese freighter along the way, and after unloading their precious cargo, they found they were exactly one gold bar short. After a thorough search of the ship, they found one of the cooks had been using one of the gold bars as a paperweight.

The crewmen of the Trout did not get to keep any souvenirs. However, the Army was decent enough to reward each and every one of them the Silver Star.Commander Fenno was soon transferred to another submarine, where he was awarded 2 Navy Crosses for his aggressive leadership.

Sadly, the Trout was lost, with all hands, 1944. I haven’t been able to find out much about the future Rear Admiral Fenno’s post-military career. I often wonder why one of the major political parties didn’t encourage him to run for office.

The Entirely Apocryphal Story of the Queen Lady Di, the Ring, and the Rolls

2011-05-16T18:58:00.000-07:00

Over the years, I’ve learned from my English friends that while you don’t ever tell any nasty jokes about the Queen, Lady Diana and Prince Phillip are a different story. Prince Phillip had a career in the Royal Navy, which was a much better job for him than being a royal diplomat. He has a half-century record of making some pretty spectacular gaffes. The (entirely apocryphal) story goes that the Queen and Lady Di go out for a drive in their Rolls when a highwayman jumps in their path and demands their valuables. At this point, Lady Di says “Do you really think we’d be out at night wearing our jewelry?” At this point the highwayman curses his luck and consoles himself by driving off with the Rolls. As Her Majesty and Lady Di walk back to Buckingham Palace, The Queen notices that Di is in fact wearing The Sapphire Ring on her finger. The Queen asks how Di managed to hide it, and Di says “I just popped it into my mouth.” Queen says, “Pity the Duke of Edinburgh couldn’t be here. Then we could have saved the Rolls-Royce”

P.S. There is another version of this joke featuring Princess Margaret which isn’t half as nice.

Bonnie Parker’s Prescient Prediction

2011-05-16T18:48:00.000-07:00

When I was in law school more than 20 years ago, one of my professors told me what was a very old story even then in the eighties. Once, an elderly Texas judge had been chided by some of his colleagues in other states that in Texas, the prescribed penalty for horse-thieving was more severe than that for 2nd-degree murder (if you kill someone in a fit of rage in Texas, you are quite likely to only serve 5 years). The elderly Texan’s rejoinder was, “Yep, we have some people down here that need killin’, but we don’t have any horses that need stealin’.” After giving the matter a great deal of thought over the years, my version of that statement would be, “There’s some people that need killing (or executing), but there aren’t any people that need raping.” This heinous crime has destroyed countless lives, and it had also given us some of our nation’s most notorious criminals. Case in point: look no further than Clyde Barrow, better known as one half of the infamous crime duo Bonnie and Clyde.

Clyde Barrow was a scrawny kid who was sentenced to prison in the late 1920s. In the words of one of his sisters, Clyde “went into prison a schoolboy and came out a rattlesnake.” Clyde was barely out of his teens when he killed a man for the first time: he beat another inmate to death with a lead pipe. There was no official action taken. I could make a pretty good guess as to why Barrow killed that man.
Clyde Barrow was no criminal genius, but he had a good understanding of two things: mobility and firepower. On Christmas Day, 1932 a man named Doyle Johnson and his wife came upon Clyde Barrow in the process of stealing Johnson’s new Ford V8. When Mr. Johnson tried to stop him, Barrow shot Johnson in the neck at point-blank range before driving off. He died of his wounds the next day. All things considered, that was a pretty lousy Christmas for the Johnson family.

Some outlaws are notorious for wielding pistols, and Prohibition-era gangsters are notorious for their Thompson machine guns. Clyde Barrow was a whole lot craftier in that regard. He went to great lengths to steal Browning Automatic Rifles from national guard armories. For readers not trained in the use of firearms, while serving in the Nay I qualified with both the M-16 automatic rifle and the Colt 45 pistol. Anyone who can hit a moving target with a pistol shot at more than 20 yards is either very good or very lucky. With an automatic rifle, I can hit a man-sized target at 200 yards just about every time.

So in case anyone reading this has ever wondered how Clyde Barrow and his gang managed to stay at large for so long, consider that most police officers in the 1930s drove their own vehicles and carried nothing more than pistols. Would you really want to take a six shooter into a gunfight with a man who can fire off 20 round-bursts in a couple seconds, reload, then fire another 20 rounds? I think not.

One of the chapters in Clyde Barrow’s life that stands out to me is that of all the outlaws I’ve read about, there has only been one who had such an abiding hatred of the prison he served time in that he actually went back to that institution and sprung a friend form work detail, killing a prison guard in the process.

Clyde always said they’d never take him alive, and he was as good as his word. In the course of his gang’s activity, he and his gang were responsible for killing 8 police officers, about as many kidnappings, and being in possession of three browning rifles, each of which carried a life sentence.
The 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde, starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, tended to glamorize Barrow and Parker. The reality is far different. On one occasion, Barrow and an accomplice shot a store clerk to death to attain 20 dollars and a bag of groceries.

One aspect of the film that is accurate is that the Barrow gang was, at least partially, a family affair. Three weeks after Clyde’s brother Buck got out of prison, Buck and his wife Blanche joined in on their crime spree. Buck was shot to death in a police ambush in which Blanche lost the sight in one eye, and she wound up serving six years in prison. Blanche Barrow is one of the few people I have ever heard of who lived long enough to watch an actress accept an academy award for portraying her on the screen. Estelle Parsons won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 1967. Blanche did not enjoy the portrayal at all, claiming that Parsons sounded like a “braying jackass.”

About the only thing I can say for Bonnie and Clyde is that they did not kill Ford LaFonda. He didn’t kill for the fun of it. He wouldn’t have hesitated to kill anyone he viewed as a threat, but he never murdered for sport. On a couple occasions they took hostages and released them unharmed.

One of these hostage incidents proves to me that true stories are better than anything you’ll ever find in fiction.
One evening, Parker and Barrow carjacked a young woman in Louisiana named Sophia Stone who was a young home demonstration agent, as well as her boyfriend Dillard Darby. I felt a chill when I first learned of this—a few years later in a nearby state, my mother was a home demonstration agent. Stone and Darby were terrified, but Bonnie Parker was quite cheerful. She made conversation, asking young Mr. Darby what he did for a living. When he told her his occupation, Bonnie Parker had a complete giggling fit, and when she finally stopped laughing, she said, “Mr Darby will probably be giving us some business here soon.” Mr Darby was an embalmer.

Bonnie and Clyde released the immensely relieved couple unharmed. Bonnie instructed them to tell the world that she did not smoke cigars (she did chain-smoke cigarettes, but there’s some question as to whether the infamous picture of Bonnie with a cigar in her mouth was the result of a gag or the newspaper’s unscrupulous re-touching).

Less than a year later, a posse of lawmen armed with BARs, tommyguns, shotguns, and pistols, riddled Barrow’s car with bullets. Clyde was killed instantly, but Bonnie had a few seconds to realize this was the end of the line. It’s likely the posse did not give them any warning. In view of Clyde’s past record, I can’t say that I blame them in the least. Young Dillard Darby from the car-napping a year before was summoned first to identify the bodies, and secondly to assist in the embalming., He found, however, that since both Bonnie and Clyde had suffered up to 25 gunshot wounds apiece, that it was extremely difficult to keep the embalming fluid in their system.

Bonnie Parker did have a gift with rhyme. She left behind a poem that ends:

Someday they’ll go down together
They’ll bury them side by side
To few it’ll be grief,
For the law, relief,
But it’s death for Bonnie and Clyde.

Ironically enough, the Parker family insisted on burying Bonnie far from her gangster boyfriend.

Laura Vikmanis

2011-05-16T18:46:00.000-07:00

Laura Vikmanis was a registered dietician in her late 30s whose husband left her for another woman. She was devastated. However, on a whim she tried out, at the age of 39, to become one of the Cincinnati Bengals’ cheerleaders. She made it to the finals on her first try, and the next year she made it on the squad. Currently, at the age of 42, she is the oldest cheerleader in the NFL. Ms. Vikmanis is soon to be the subject of a TV movie, which will no doubt help her support herself and her two daughters, aged 14 and 12. I wish her all the best, but I would dearly love to be a fly on the wall when she tells her daughters, “Do you really think you’re leaving the house dressed like that?”

14th Time’s the Charm

2011-05-16T18:43:00.000-07:00

After some of the things I’ve seen recently, perhaps it’s time for me to share a hopeful story.

I’ve never had a problem with alcohol, but I’ve often found the 12 steps to be a very useful program. I attended quite a few open AA meetings in Dayton back in the early 90s. One evening about 20 years ago, I heard a grey-haired gentleman give a “lead”: a description of how he started drinking, what it was like, and how he came to sobriety. After he finished, I asked him if it was OK if I shared his story with others, and he gave me the go-ahead.

This man was an extraordinarily intelligent fellow. I believe he was a self-employed engineer. However, he was convinced he was much too smart to be an alcoholic, even after he repeatedly picked up drunk driving convictions. Back in the days he was describing, judges weren’t as eager to give out jail time as they are now. In most jurisdictions today, a third DUI conviction in five years gets you a felony and over a year in prison.

A few weeks ago, I talked with an alcohol counselor at a continuing legal education seminar who told our group that if a person gets a drunk driving conviction, it’s about 50-50 as to whether they’re an alcoholic. If they get a second conviction, they’re much more likely to be an alcoholic. If they get a third, it’s just about an absolute certainty. I hope my readers will forgive me my slightly sketchy memory 20 years later, but the number of his drunk driving convictions was in the teens, somewhere between 13 and 19.

This guy found the repeated loss of his license and thousands of dollars in fines quite annoying, and while still convinced he was not an alcoholic, he finally concluded he didn’t want anymore drunk driving convictions. So he put a great deal of thought into his drinking and planned his bouts very carefully. He figured that he was not an alcoholic as long as he didn’t get another DUI, but if he did in spite his best efforts, he would have to admit that he was indeed an alcoholic. Lo and behold, one night driving home from the bar he saw flashing red and blue lights in his rearview mirror, and when the officer who had handcuffed him helped him into the paddywagon, he said aloud, “Oh ****, I’m going to have to go to AA.”

At the time I met him, he had been sober for over a decade. The lesson I take form this story is, there is no such thing as a hopeless alcoholic, as long as that person is still breathing (and has not suffered permanent brain damage). There are people for whom the odds are long, but after 22 years as a defense attorney, I have learned you never can tell who is going to die a drunk and who is going to see the light and achieve sobriety.

Kentrell Mitchell (A Very Sad Story)

2011-05-16T18:42:00.000-07:00

Until last month, I didn’t know that there was a Kentrell Mitchell living in Columbus on E 16th Avenue. Ironically enough, decades ago, when I was a student at Ohio State, I’d lived on 17th Avenue. Kentrell, it turns out, had much better luck than his half-brother Jayden Mithcell. Jayden was only three months old November of last year when his biological father, Quindell Sherman, got in a terrible argument with Jayden and Kentrell’s mother and decided to express his displeasure by picking Jayden up and slamming him to the floor of their house’s porch. He then picked his three-month-old son up and hurled him into the middle of the street. Finally, he picked the child up and threw him headfirst onto the pavement. A few hours later the Columbus Police found Quindell holding his son’s body, hiding in a dumpster.

This past week, a judge sentenced Quindell to life in prison with the possibility of parole in twenty-five (young Kentrell was in court with his great-grandmother, who was about 50 years old. Do the math). For the sake of my sanity, I am profoundly grateful that I was not involved in his family’s case. Quindell agreed to plea guilty in exchange for the prosecutor’s office taking the death penalty off the table. I hope Quindell Sherman never makes parole, I hope that Kentrell’s mother exercises a bit more discretion in selecting her next “baby daddy,” and I hope Quindell is never anywhere near a child ever again.

Some of my friends occasionally express concern that I sometimes have a rather bleak outlook on life. Perhaps the story of the 16th Avenue Mitchell family will help explain why.

“..Hard to Even Take Its Measure”

2011-05-16T18:37:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite lines from the Coen brothers film No Country for Old Men is when Tommy Lee Jones’ character, a Texas sheriff rapidly approaching retirement, says “The evil you see these days, its hard to even take its measure.” I know exactly what he was talking about.

I occasionally correspond with an English solicitor who told me that while William and Kate were tying the knot, he was stuck being assigned counsel to two Lithuanians charged with “coming prepared” (in Ohio, it would be called “possession of criminal tools”) and a drunken woman who says that three cops were lying when they swore under oath that she had kicked one of them. My only advice in those two cases were: 1. See if the court would be amenable to the two Lithuanian chaps buying one-way tickets back to Vilnius (in Alaska, that’s what’s known as a “blue-ticket special”), as for the drunken, would-be place-kicker, you might want to ask if she’s ever heard of Alcoholics Anonymous (who knows, there’s a one in 10,000 chance she might look into it and get positive results).

This past week, I found myself fervently wishing that I could trade cases with my distinguished English colleague at the bar. I was appointed guardian ad litum for someone I’ll refer to only as a young lady from Kenya. She is in her mid-teens, and sometime ago, she fell into the hands of human traffickers. I have visited her at the psychiatric ward of Ohio State’s medical center and learned that she has refused to take medication. This is not surprising because, apparently, her former kidnappers used to drug her before subjecting her to abuse.

I make a living on the basis of my use of the English language, but I have a really hard time expressing the horror of what I’ve had to face and my frustration that I can’t do more to help my client. Right now, YLK has very serious difficulty trusting anyone, much less anyone who has a Y chromosome; I’m going to talk with a magistrate to see if I can withdraw to see if she can receive a female guardian at litum. On the other hand, YLK does not like meeting new people, so who’s to say what the best course of action is? I firmly wish I could establish enough rapport with my client that I could persuade her to cooperate with the police and FBI, and perhaps, in some far future date, I will. I’d also offer the opinion that anyone complicit in human trafficking deserves to be locked up in a maximum security prison until the sun burns out.

Exonerating Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow

2011-05-01T09:14:00.000-07:00

Popular legend has it that the Great Chicago Fire of October 1871 was the result of Mrs O’Leary’s cow kicking over a lantern in a straw-filled barn. This legend was immortalized by that song of Boy Scouts everywhere:

One dark night when the world was all in bed
Old lady Leary took a lantern to the shed
When the cow kicked it over she winked her eye and said
They’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight!

A few words on behalf of the innocent bovine: As dreadful as that fire was (look up mileage burned) it is not the worst fire in American history. That was the Great Peshtigo, Wisconsin Fire that took place the same day less than 100 miles north. That fire burned out 1800 square miles (an area more than half the size of the state of Rhode Island) and killed over 2000 people. I thought it was an extraordinary coincidence. Students of astronomy would say it was no coincidence since there were several other terribly destructive forest fires in several other Midwestern states that same day. The most likely explanation is a series of meteorites hitting the earth simultaneously. The possibility of meteorites doing even more severe damage than that is I believe one of the best arguments in favor of continuing the space program.

A Short Clip from “Band of Brothers”

2011-04-30T23:00:00.000-07:00

The Stephen Spielberg-Tom Hanks miniseries production of Band of Brothers impressed me as one of the best depictions ever of American fighting men in WWII. The men of Company E of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division had an amazing experience during WWII. They jumped into Normandy during D-Day, June 6 1944, jumped into combat again September that year at Eindhoven in Holland, and then were called upon in December to defend Baston in the Battle of the Bulge. After all that, they caught an incredible break at the end of the war: on VE Day, May 8 1945, they had just occupied Hitler’s HQ “The Eagle’s Nest” in Bertha’s Garden in Bavaria, where they helped themselves to the contents of Herman Goering’s liquor cabinet.

It was a wonderful film about some extraordinarily fine men, and there was one small bit which I wonder if most viewers missed: At one point, when the 101st has entered Germany, one of the paratroopers spies a very attractive young German farm girl and calls out to her, “Hey Fraulien! I got nylon stockings!” She runs off, and he takes off in hot pursuit. He returns and his buddy asks, “How’d you do?” He replies, crestfallen, “Ah, she slapped me cross the face.” No doubt he soon was looking for a young lady with more of a dedication to fashion.

The reason that vignette stays with me is that if there were ever a large group of young American men who could have misbehaved spectacularly with very little fear of consequences, it was when the US army entered Germany in 1945. Those young men had guns and the police were either dead, in captivity or in hiding. True, some US soldiers did commit terrible crimes, and some of them suffered court martials, and in some cases were even executed. And of course, that sort of crime is frequently unreported. However, anyone with any sense of proportion would be well advised to read Cornelius Ryan’s book The Last Battle for a description of how Red Army soldiers behaved as they entered Eastern Germany around the same time. At Vienna, the Red Army insisted on erecting a statue of a red army soldier in that city’s main square. The locals, to this day, refer to it as “the statue of the unknown rapist.” In another part of Germany, the French Moroccan troops were so notorious that German civilians coined the term “to Moroccanate,” a synonym for gang rape. Anyone who wants a better idea of how French Muslim troops behaved might want to observe Sophia Lauren’s Oscar-winning performance in “Two Women.”

One more small tribute to the men of Easy Company: for the benefit of lifelong civilians, if you want to know what kind of men become paratroopers, consider this: a paratrooper is a man who **volunteers** to make a living repeatedly jumping out of perfectly well-functioning aircraft at heights hundreds of feet off the ground to expedite their arrival at a firefight where they can expect to be outnumbered, outgunned, and surrounded.

Letter to England: W. Horton

2011-04-30T22:53:00.000-07:00

I occasionally correspond with an English attorney: it’s frequently useful to get a completely different perspective on current events. So anyone interested on a completely different perspective on American affairs, kindly read on.

Dear Glyn,
A while back I asked you if you’d ever heard of the Willie Horton case, and you said you hadn’t. Well it’s like this: clear back in 1974, 3 young punks decided to rob a filling station. Who would’ve believed that 14 years later, it would be the decisive factor in an American presidential election? The filling station attendant, a terrified 19 yr old named Joseph Fournier quickly gave thugs all the cash in the register, which totaled, $60. However, they felt the need to stab him 19 times and stuff him into a garbage container, where he bled to death. As one of the criminal geniuses walked away with his $20 take, he commented, “That’s another dead honky.” All three were arrested and convicted. One of those three men was 21-year-old Willie Horton. He was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.

That’s exactly where Horton’s life story should have ended. However, because he had the luck to commit his crime in the commonwealth of MA, he soon became eligible for a weekend furlough program (that is not a misprint, in MA, even prisoners serving life without parole can get furlough on weekends). In 1987, Horton decided not to go back to prison and managed to remain at large for 6 months until he was arrested several hundred miles south in Maryland for raping a woman and pistol-whipping her fiancé. I once read an interview in The Nation magazine in which Horton maintained his innocence. I guess it’s just extraordinary bad luck on his part that when he was arrested, he was driving his victim’s car. After a MD jury convicted him of aggravated rape, aggravated burglary, aggravated assault, and grand theft auto, the MD judge sentenced Horton to life in prison w/o possibility of parole. The MA requested that MD extradite H back to them so he could continue serving his life sentence, but the MD judge indignantly denied their request. So Willie Horton is still in prison 23 yrs later, and his chances of ever being released are slim to none with slim out of town.

Mr H never would have achieved a fraction of his notoriety except for the fact that he committed his second crime after the MA state legislature had passed a law excluding inmates serving life without parole form the furlough program and Governor Mike Dukakis. After the MD incident, Fournier’s family spoke out publicly about their outage that their son’s killer had been eligible for a furlough program. At that point, Mike Dukakis might conceivably have saved his electoral chances by meeting with the family, apologizing, and ending the furlough system. Instead he declared the furlough system had been “99% successful.” The next year, Dukakis won the Democratic nomination for President. During primary season, Senator Al Gore was the first to bring up the Willie Horton fiasco, and in the final months of the campaign, the Bush camp harped on it nonstop. The democratic response was predictable: since Willie Horton is black and both his murder victim and his rape victim are white, they screamed racism, racism, racism 24/7.

Usually that mantra works. It certainly did not this time. Election night 1988 was a nightmare for democrats. Horton is now in his 60s, serving in a maximum security prison in MD in solitary since he was responsible for the end of furlough programs in MD as well as MA, he’s not going to win any popularity contests with his fellow inmates.

An Echo in the Onion Field

2011-04-30T22:37:00.000-07:00

Anyone who read Joseph Wambaugh’s book or saw the film based on it is unlikely to ever forget it. March 9, 1963, two plainclothes LA police officers made what they thought was a routine traffic stop when one of the suspects, Gregory Powell, put a gun to the back of Ian Campbell, one of the officers, and ordered his partner Carl Hettinger to disarm. Powell and his accomplice, Jimmy Smith, took the two officers hostage and drove them to an onion field far outside the city where Powell shot Campbell to death. Officer Hettinger managed to escape.

Horrible as the events of that night were, LAPD’s treatment of Officer Hettinger was even worse. They attempted to make him an example of exactly what an officer should not do in a hostage situation. Hettinger was later fired from LAPD after being arrested for shoplifting. Anyone who has taken a single course in freshman psych could see that he was a deeply wounded individual who needed support and understanding rather than persecution and contempt from his comrades. Hettinger ultimately drank himself into an early grave. This whole episode appalled and intrigued a young vice cop called Joseph Wambaugh, who later wrote the account. Jimmy Smith was parolled from prison in 1982 and lived another 10 years without once managing to stay out of prison more than 12 months at a time. He was a man destined to “do life on the installment plan.” This past March 9 marked the 48th anniversary of Powell’s arrest. He is still incarcerated and is unlikely to ever be paroled.

I sometimes wondered what could cause a person to become such a cold-blooded murderer as Gregory Powell turned out to be, and in reading Wambaugh’s book, I got a partial answer. In the process of interviewing Powell, J W learned that in the first 30 years of Powell’s life he spent 17 of them incarcerated in one institution or another. He also learned that at 13, Powell was raped by a priest (my opinion, any adult who has sexual relations with a 13-year-old is committing rape, regardless of whether or not it is forcible). At this point, I’d like to point out that I do not believe Powell deserves a pass because of his early experience, nor am I alleging that all priests or clergy are child molesters. I would like to say that I wish the priest who molested Powell had spent the last 48 years sharing his cell.

Housework (Among Other Things)

2011-04-30T22:33:00.000-07:00

A dear friend of mine of long acquaintance once told me what some might regard as a “chick joke”. It’s the story of a woman handing an attractive man a 100-dollar bill and saying “Paint my house.” OK ladies, yuck it up, but I say to my friend, “Maybe you just don’t know the right guys.”

It’s funny how my Aspergian memory ranges from being occasionally horrendous in the media present to being phenomenally clear for events that I’ve managed to “lock in”. One of my favorite memories was a visit I paid friends of mine in San Diego 20 years ago. When I walked in the door, as Barbara greeted me I couldn’t help but notice that in the living room her husband, who at the time was a marine drill instructor, was ironing one of his shirts. I asked does he always iron his shirts and she said, “Oh he won’t let me get near them.” (for the record, you could shave yourself with the creases in his uniform and use his spit-shined shoes for a mirror). That night at dinner (which was an out-of-this-world pasta dish), I kid Barbara that her husband probably decided to propose to her shortly after the same night she cooked for him the first time. Their two daughters, at that time aged 6 and 3, were doing the “eat like little girls routine,” the twirl your fork around on the plate, put down your fork, stick out your lower lip and wear an expression that says, "I am NOT hungry."

At this point, Dad said, “I want you girls to clean up your plate. Barb when you’re done eating if they haven’t cleaned up their plates they’re going to bed and don’t eat slowly to give them more time.” At this point I tried to do some discreet cheerleading for the girls: “Come on kids, Mom’s cooking in wonderful.” A few minutes later, when Barb had cleaned her plate, Erin (the six-year-old) had cleaned her plate, Seana (the 3-year-old) had cleaned her plate, and furthermore, **I** had cleaned up **mine**. And if anyone is snickering, you can knock it off, because if you had been there, you would have cleaned up your plate too.

The next day dad and I walked in the living room where the two kidsters had been playing with playthings strewn over a considerable portion of the living room. At this point dad says “Girls, you’ve made a mess on the floor.” At this point the three-year-old looks at the six-year-old, the six-year-old looks at the three-year-old, and they look back at daddy with an expression that seems to say, “So what daddy-o, that’s our job.” Dad then said, “You girls are not going to sea world until that mess is cleaned up.” In 12.4 seconds, the family living room was ready for a photo shoot for better homes and gardens.

That night, I once again got to enjoy Barbra’s cuisine, and when we were finished, Dad did the dishes as he had the previous night. I was mildly surprised and very politely asked Barbara if her husband always did the dishes. A voice from the sink replied, “No but I do more than my share, don’t I **dear**?” To which Barb replied “He does, he really does.” Pause. I guess I quite involuntarily raised an eyebrow at that bit of news, to which Barb got an almost dear in headlights look and said, “But he does them so much faster than I do!” Sorry folks, I had to chuckle at that one. Barb had got a husband an awful lot of women would envy, and she has to come up with alibis for her husband doing the dishes? Come on, that’s funny.

So what do you get when you have a husband who is conscientious about helping out with housework and keeping his kidsters on the straight and narrow? In this case, some absolutely beyond amazing children, and a marriage that lasts. This past Valentine’s Day, Barb and her husband celebrated their 28th wedding anniversary. Congrats to them, and may the next 28 years be even better.

What it Takes to Tick Me Off

2011-04-30T22:31:00.000-07:00

In dealing with my clients and some of the opposing parties, I need to develop the hide of a rhinoceros and try to keep as sense of humor. Recently I represented a Mr. Mudd in his request for a protection order against his ex-girlfriend, a Ms. Hay. The judge denied his request, and I didn’t even receive a brick for my troubles. I recently had a client who wanted d protection order against her ex who, she informed me, had given her a VD that would seriously affect the health of the two children they had together. I refrained from asking her why she was associating with such a man, and if he had received a note to philander from his wife.

Anyhow, last month I had just gotten my client her ex parte order form the judge when the news came out that five OSU football players were going to be suspended for five games for having violated NCAA regulations against accepting gratuities. My client started jumping up and down and clapping with excitement, proclaiming, “Goody goody, I’m a Notre Dame fan!” I thought to myself, I’m about ready to either strangle her or throw her out the courthouse’s 3rd story window, or both. Instead, I refrained, and did not even bother telling her that if she ever dreamed that she would qualify for admittance to ND, when she woke up she had better call Tedd Hessburgh and apologize. I also refrained from admonishing my client for a woman of her obesity should not jump up and down on any level above the ground floor—it might have dire consequences. I was grinding my teeth so hard I feared I might need to make an emergency trip to the dentist.

A few days later, that same client actually managed to **seriously** tick me off. I managed to get her consent degree from her former paramour and his girlfriend (which means eventually I will get paid) and at the last moment the new girlfriend insisted that the protection order include her unborn child who is due in a few more months. I was driving my client home when she proclaimed with the utmost vehemence, “I hope that baby dies!” At that point, I blew up. I yelled, “Sit down in the car and shut up. I do not want to hear **one** (expletive deleted) word out of you. I signed on to get you a protection order, and I signed on to driving you home, but I did not sign on to hear you use that kind of language on a newborn baby. Now if I hear one more word out of you I’m going to pull over and you can walk back.” She managed to say not a word on the way home. If I never see that hateful woman again it will be much too soon.

Thunderball’s Villain and the Wagner Act

2011-04-30T22:27:00.000-07:00

Back in 1965, I was absolutely awestruck by Sean Connery’s performance in the James Bond adventure film Thunderball. Almost half a century later, I have a much different perspective. Granted, the plotline of an evil organization obtaining a nuclear weapon and holding a city hostage is a chilling one. What strikes me most today is that Thunderball’s villain Emilio Largo (played by Adolfo Celli) would have all kinds of complaints from the unions’ shop steward of Henchmans’ Local 217 for violations of the local Wagner Act (I guess that’s why Largo sets up his nefarious HQ in the Bahamas).

First off, he sends a single henchman to kill Bond in his hotel suite, a plot that predictably goes awry. When Bond sends him back to his criminal mastermind to report his failure, Largo demonstrates what en evil character is by having his other henchman throw the hapless underling into an enormous pool of sharks. When I think about that now, having studied Labor Law at Notre Dame, I can only imagine the shop steward’s indignation: “Now see here Mr Largo, our collective bargaining agreement clearly stipulates that hotel assassinations are a 2-man job. And then you throw the guy into a shark tank! This gives a whole new meaning to the term unlawful discharge!”

Even more egregiously, when Bond is attempting to infiltrate Largo’s HQ he is tackled by a Largo henchman and knocked into the residence’s swimming pool. When Largo shows up a few seconds later with a whole crowd of henchmen in tow, does he a) have his other henchman jump in to lend the first guy a hand in handling Bond, b) fire a warning shot to let 007 know the jig is up, or c) flip a switch to make a metal screen cover the pool and open a secret compartment connecting the shark tank to the swimming pool? It was c), never mind that this ensures another one of Largo’s henchman will certainly die as a result. (I’ve read that during filming, Sean Connery got a whole lot closer to one of the sharks than he wanted to, and he voiced his displeasure to the director). Again, I can just hear Largos’ builder saying: “Uh-huh, You want a passageway built from the shark tank to the swimming pool. You wanna explain your reasoning on that Mr. Largo? You really need to find another outfit because if our company did it, imagine the possibility for personal injury lawsuit.”

While Thunderball did have several moments that strike me as hokey, it’s still one of my favorite Bond films because it contains my all-time favorite Connery line: at the film’s climax, Largo is attempting to make his getaway in this yacht, the Disco Valente, which can take off at what seems to be 40 knotts (never mind that chasing it down would be a piece of cake for any aircraft or helicopter). Bond engages in a serious brawl in the ship’s pilot house with the ship’s captain, Largo, and another henchman, and does quite well fighting at 3:1 odds. However, he finds himself staring down the barrel of Largo’s pistol and with blood running down his face, it looks like Bond’s luck just might have run out. Then there’s a sudden thunk, Largo’s eyes glaze over, and he does a slow fall to the floor. When he’s fallen, we see there’s a spear gun projectile in his back, and Largo’s ex mistress, Domino (who’s taken up with Bond) steps over her ex-lover’s body and says, with breathy French accent, “I am glad I keelled heem.” With blood dripping from one corner of his moth, Connery replies, “**You’re** glad?”

A Visitor to Xenia

2011-04-30T22:23:00.000-07:00

Many years ago I served in Company A of 1/166 infantry brigade of the Ohio National Guard in Xenia Oh, and the unit sometimes participated in Xenia’s 4th of July parade. I once cracked up my 1st sergeant by suggesting we invite actress Lucy Lawless to be the marshal of the parade. What could possibly generate better headlines than “Xena visits Xenia?”

Reggie Jackson and the Queen

2011-04-30T22:22:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has seen the 1988 Leslie Neilson movie The Naked Gun will recall the plot, a comic variation on The Manchurian Candidate: an assassin is programmed through post-hypnotic suggestion to carry out an assassination. In the film, the assassin’s target was “the Queen”. Although the queen’s country was not specified, seeing as how she’s a lady of a certain age with interesting taste in hats, the implication was pretty obvious. The films “assassin” was none other than baseball great Reggie Jackson, who is supposed to perform the assassination in the middle of a baseball game.

Ironically enough, when Queen Elizabeth visited the States in 1991, she did attend an American baseball game, and Reggie Jackson was a coach on one of the teams. Before the game, Mr. Jackson told his players there were to be absolutely, positively no mention whatsoever of the fictional cinematic assassination attempt. I guess that’s one of the drawbacks to being a monarch: you miss out on a lot of good laughs.

The Irony of Jon Thomas Freeman

2011-04-30T22:20:00.000-07:00

As my readers are no doubt aware, I often find irony in the names of some of the parties in the cases I handle. I’m currently serving as guardian ad litum for the daughter of a man named Jon Thomas Freeman. This individual had several ironies in his name. First Mr. Freeman is not a free man. He is doing an 18-month stretch at Southeastern Correctional near Lancaster, Ohio. This is not his first time living in government housing. As my British correspondents can understand, Mr. Freeman is in the habit of acting like a total John Thomas. For my readers knowledgeable of Yiddish, I put it slightly differently: Mr. F is a schmuck, a putz, and a total no-goodnik to boot.

This is a relatively happy story in that Mr. F’s mother has stepped up to the plate and is doing a very fine job of caring for his nine-month-old baby girl. I haven’t met Mr. Freeman, since he’s currently serving time on a theft charge. If I ever do I’ll be very tempted to ask him exactly what was so tempting to steal that he gave up the chance to be around for the first year and a half of his beautiful daughter’s life.

Ingrid’s Sneaky Song

2011-04-30T22:16:00.002-07:00

When I was in grad school I was friends with a German woman about fifteen years older than me. She had a very interesting family background. The family had a summer home in the Berghof Gardens Bavaria. Guess who their next door neighbor was? Their primary residence was in Dresden, and Ingrid had an incredible stroke of luck a fateful night in Feb 1945—she and her family were out of town when the RAF came knocking. She didn’t get to see her father much for the next 10 years—he was a POW in a Russian camp held incommunicado, so they didn’t even know he was alive.

When Ingrid grew up, she married an American Army officer and came to the US. When her husband was stationed at Fort Knox, the armor school had a competition to select a song for the Second Armor Division and a friend of hers, also a German service wife, made an entry. They won the competition only to have their prize revoked a few days later when someone figured out they had translated the lyrics of the Wermacht’s “Der Panzerleid” into English. I think that’s kind of a shame, actually: Der Panzerleid is a very stirring song.

Scary Statistics II

2011-04-30T22:16:00.001-07:00

As a serious student of history, I’m often appalled at the blind spot most people, even those with college degrees, have for what happened in the Ukraine in the early 1930s during Stalin’s forced collectivization. The Soviet government and their sympathizers in the West went to great lengths to hide the evidence of their crimes from the West. I’m appalled that 80 years later, it seems they have largely succeeded. I read Robert Conquest’s Harvest of Sorrow, which he wrote in the 1980s. He concluded that between Stalin’s terror famine and the liquidation of the gulags, the death toll was almost 15 million. Recent sources indicate the estimate may have been conservative.

I recently happened upon a chilling statistic from the Soviet Union’s Education ministry. In 1930, there were 4 times as many kindergarten students in the Russian Republic of the USSR as there were in the Ukraine. Five years later, there were eight times as many. The full implications of those two statistics chill my blood.

Scary Statistics I

2011-04-30T22:14:00.000-07:00

As a history buff occasionally I come across a simple statistic that has mind-boggling implications. For example, since I was very young I’ve always made the argument that as dreadful as the use of the atomic bombs were, the loss of life from an invasion of the Japanese home islands would have been unimaginably horrendous.

I recently happened upon a news item that confirms my view. On the island of Okinawa, the local government built a memorial to all those who died in the fighting on that island from April to June of 1945. The memorial lists 240,734 names. More than half of the dead were Okinawan civilians. The US forces had assembled such massive firepower that they could kill about 9 Japanese soldiers for every American fatality. Anyone who bothers to do the research can find that Okinawa’s garrison was two reinforced divisions with 77,000 army troops. Hushu, the target of the planned US invasion of the Japanese home islands set to start December 1, 1945, had a garrison of over 14 reinforced divisions and over 900,000 troops (that’s what was available in August of ’45 when Emperor Hirohito gave the surrender order, no doubt they would have received additional reinforcements had the invasion actually gone forward). I encourage anyone who condemns the use of the atomic bombs to consider those figures and do the math.

One of the best books I’ve ever read about the fighting in the Pacific was William Manchester’s Goodbye, Darkness, which gives a stunning account of his experience as a sergeant in the 26th marine division on Okinawa. We’ve already mentioned in the fight for Okinawa, Manchester was wounded twice and his unit took 81 casualties. His conclusion: “Thank God for the atomic bomb.”

Teaching High School

2011-04-30T22:10:00.000-07:00

Luann Johnson once wrote a book entitled My Posse Don’t Do Homework about her experiences teaching at an inner-city high school. She knew her subject and showed a great deal of dedication to her students. She was also quite lucky to be a former US Marine officer. Once early in her teaching stint, it looked like things might get physical between her and one of her students, which is a very bad thing. She assumed a martial arts defensive stance and then caught a major break: one of her would-be attackers’ friends happened to be a sometime-viewer of the history channel, so he yelled out, “Back off man! She was a marine! They can kill you with their bare hands!”

Hollywood later made a movie about Ms. Johnson’s experiences starring Michelle Pfeiffer (although they succumbed to political correctness and renamed it Dangerous Minds). If anyone asked me what I find the most serious problem in American education, I would have no hesitation in saying the title of Ms J’s book was spot-on. In some communities there is considerable social pressure not to succeed academically, and the consequences of that pressure are long-lasting and ghastly.

Believe it or not, in 2000 I spent most of a semester teaching 11th grade English at Simon Sanchez high school Hagatna, Guam. It is an institution that admits 600 ninth graders and graduates 240 twelfth graders .A dear friend of mine form law school predicted, “Kent, those kids will eat you alive.” I am happy to report I did not succumb to cannibalism. However there were times I was grateful that I’m over 6 feet tall and clock in at over 200 lbs. It didn’t help that the high school had a policy of no detentions.

There are many things that make me pessimistic about the future of American education and its implications for our society as a whole. However, I can report one bright spot. A dear friend of mine who’s a retired Marine First Sergeant has informed me that after he finishes putting his own children through college he intends to finish up his degree and get certified to teach history. I would dearly love to be a fly on the wall watching one of his classes. I seriously doubt he will ever have any discipline problems.

Something I Learned in Jerusalem

2011-04-30T22:08:00.000-07:00

I have been to Jerusalem three times now and I’ve seen the Western Wall (sometimes known as the Wailing Wall, which is something of a misnomer: the reason it got the name is that when Orthodox Jews pray at the wall, they do so with their eyes shut and rock back and forth so as to keep their balance). The Western Wall is all that remains of the Second Temple. King Solomon built the first Temple, and the Babylonians destroyed it centuries later; after the Babylonian exile, the Persians permitted the Israelites to reconstruct the Temple. The second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. Almost 600 years later, the Muslims built the Dome of the Rock mosque directly on top of the Temple site. The Dome of the Rock, Muslims believe, was the spot where the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven. To put it mildly, I’m skeptical of the veracity of that account. It seems to me Jerusalem is not particularly important to Muslims for its own sake. It’s more important insofar as it’s something they want to deny to Jews and Christians.

A Tripartite Religious Joke (Rated G)

2011-04-30T22:05:00.000-07:00

There’s an old joke about a guy who’s an incorrigible lush who finds religion and becomes A) a Muslim B) a Mormon C) a Baptist (take your pick). He’s informed that in that faith, the use of alcohol is strictly forbidden. He asks if there might be an exception for medical emergencies, and he’s told, you may drink to save your life. That night, he’s out in the swamp yelling “Here, snake! Here, snake!”

Jethro Pugh/ Unlucky Name, Very Lucky Genes

2011-04-30T22:04:00.000-07:00

Some people have names that make them veritable abuse magnets. One of my good friends from law school is a nice lady named Maureen Cunningham. I cringe to think of the number of nasty comments she must have received in middle school and high school. One fellow I’d consider unlucky is Jethro Pugh, as in rhymes with “few.” I can hardly imagine how many grade schoolers amused themselves by calling him “stinky.” However, fate and DNA conspired to give Jethro a break. By the time he graduated high school, he was well on his way to his full size of 6’6”, 220 pounds. His hulking frame combined with fast reflexes served him well playing twelve years as a defensive tackle for the Dallas Cowboys. I can only imagine that by the time he graduated high school, his grade school detractors, his teachers, and probably his principal were addressing him as “Mr. Pugh, Sir.”

Johnnie Gibson’s First Case

2011-04-30T22:03:00.000-07:00

Johnnie Mae Gibson was the first woman to serve as a special agent in the FBI. She did quite well on her first case. She was assigned to a task force tracking down a bank robber who happened to be a very bad actor and who happened to be black. The FBI knew the identity of the robber’s girlfriend, and some very fine agents had questioned her, but she had adamantly refused to cooperate. Agent Gibson looked through all the interrogation transcripts and noticed at one point the girlfriend had made some statement to the effect of, “I don’t care what you say, I’m not giving up my honey-bunny!” or some other term of endearment.

At that point, a metaphorical light bulb went off in Agent Gibson’s head. She dressed herself up to look like a gangster’s girlfriend, stomped into the girlfriend’s workplace and demanded to know, “Where is she?” Upon meeting the girlfriend, she sneered, “I bet he calls you honey-bunny too.” Approximately two minutes later, the girlfriend was on an (FBI-tapped) phone shouting at her boyfriend the bank robber, and by the close of the day, the FBI had wrapped up a multi-year investigation. That bank robber then spent the next 50 years of his life ruing the fact that hell hath no fury like a woman who thinks she’s been scorned. I wonder if he was calling her honey-bunny when he got out? Kinda doubt it.

Animal House Trivia

2011-04-30T22:01:00.000-07:00

I recently saw a “Where Are They Now?” special on the movie Animal House more than 30 years after its release. Watching it turned out to be almost as fun as watching the movie. For example, just before the climactic trashing of the homecoming parade, the character of Flounder (played by Stephen Furst) walks into a store and asks to buy 10,000 marbles. He wound up marrying the woman who played the salesgirl. In the film, the band performing at Delta House’s toga party was Otis Day & the Nights. This was not the singer’s real name, but the film was so successful that he changed his name to Otis Day. My favorite bit of trivia: during the film-ending riot, there’s a short scene where a little boy sits on a bed reading a copy of Playboy when a baton-twirling cheerleader gets hurled through his open window and lands on the bed next to him. The little boy casts his eyes skyward and says, “Thank you God!” I learned in the documentary that the boy grew up to be a minister. When people ask him about his bit part in the film, he replies, “30 years later I’m still praising God.”

I have no wish to enter into a theological dispute with anyone as to the existence or nonexistence of God; however, if there is a God, that story tends to indicate that he has a sense of humor.

What Would You Do? (ABC & Me)

2011-04-30T21:58:00.000-07:00

There is a program on ABC called “What Would You Do?” John Quinones will set up a camera in a public place and watch people’s reactions to actors performing some outlandish or egregious scenario. In one episode, they set up a camera at a fast food restaurant. They had a young actress dressed in Middle Eastern garb trying to make an order while another actor depicting the cashier insulted her with comments to the like of “How do I know you’re not a terrorist?” The responses were striking. Half the patrons ignored the situation completely, about 1/6 made rude anti-Islamic comments themselves, and about a third told the cashier exactly where to get off. I found it quite touching that one middle-aged gentleman read the cashier the riot act informing him he had a son fighting in Iraq and he simply couldn’t treat people like that in America. The young actress playing the customer was quite touched as well. As a lawyer, my reaction would be slightly different from any of those listed. I would be handing her my business card, telling her we were both going to be very rich, because under the civil rights act of 1994 that sort of behavior is grounds for a lawsuit. So if anyone reading out there sees this kind of situation, call me immediately.

The second scenario I found quite dramatic was an actor and an actress sitting at a bar. When the young woman excused herself to use the restroom, the actor put a powdered substance in her drink. Reactions were striking. There were two yahoos who did everything but congratulate the pretend perpetrator on his cleverness, while one gentleman who was with his wife had a complete conniption fit. Ironically enough, the man’s wife was saying, in effect, dear let’s not get involved, while the man proclaimed: “I seen what I seen!” The actress playing the would-be victim was quite touched at the concern some bystanders showed. She even mentioned she had had a bad experience sometime before. If I were in that situation, I’d like to think I would immediately tell the bartender to call the police, I would inform the young lady, I might even offer to buy the drink from her for $100 so as to build a criminal case against the guy. All else fails, I’d be looking for a ketchup bottle or a chair to break over his head.

I don’t expect to see such a scenario in real life, however just to do my good deed I’ll share some good advice I hope parents will pass along to their daughters: WATCH YOUR DRINK, WATCH YOUR DRINK, WATCH YOUR DRINK.

Some of the Reasons I Love the Aussies

2011-04-30T21:56:00.000-07:00

There is an old story that back in early 1942, the US first marine division was sent to Australia to prepare for the invasion of the Guada Canal. Since a great many Australian army units were still in North Africa, and the Australians quite understandably feared Japanese invasion, they gave the marines quite a welcome. Indeed, the month after the marines left Australia, the division’s postal clerks discovered a clear majority of both incoming and outgoing mail was either from or to Australia. I think that’s quite a tribute to Australian hospitality. Since one of my readers grew up in Melbourne, here’s a story I think she’ll appreciate, especially if she knows anybody in Brisbane: After the end of the Guada Canal campaign, the fist marine division was sent to Brisbane. Apparently the marines were not particularly impressed. Indeed some of them found the climate and location so displeasing they asked to be sent back to the Guada Canal. Somehow the higher-ups decided the situation was safe enough for them to be relocated to Melbourne, which went over very well indeed.

During my time in the US Navy, I heard the saying amongst American sailors that if you lead a good life, when you die, you will get to go to Australia. Once while teaching onboard a US Navy ship, we pulled into Panang, Malaysia and I got to talking with an Australian lady of a certain age old enough to have vivid memories of the spring of 1942. When she learned that I had some connection with the US navy, I got the impression that she figured I was personally responsible for winning the battle of the Coral Sea and saving the country from Japanese invasion. I have not yet managed to make it to the land down under, but I can honestly say I have never made an Ozzie I didn’t likem and I’ve met quite a few. Any country that can produce Elle McPherson, Nicole Kidman, Naomi Watts, and Rebecca Hassock is clearly **not** to be taken lightly.