davidbrucehaiku: dilapidation

door-2687177_1280

https://pixabay.com/en/door-gate-rustica-old-passepartout-2687177/

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DILAPIDATION

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dilapidation

can be very beautiful

in an artist’s eyes

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davidbrucehaiku: lotus

lotus-1205631_1280

https://pixabay.com/en/lotus-natural-water-meditation-zen-1205631/

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LOTUS

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It’s not permanent

But some temporary things

Can be beautiful

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David Bruce: Law Anecdotes

Gideon

On August 4, 1961, in a Panama City, Florida, courtroom, Clarence Earl Gideon went on trial on a burglary charge. The judge asked him, “Are you ready to go on trial?” Mr. Gideon replied, “I am not ready, your Honor.” The judge asked why not, and Mr. Gideon replied, “I have no Counsel.” He then explained that he was indigent and could not afford to hire a lawyer, and he requested that the court appoint a lawyer to defend him. The judge ruled that Mr. Gideon would have to defend himself, and eventually Mr. Gideon was convicted and given a five-year prison sentence. In prison, he studied law books and the Bill of Rights, and he handwrote a petition asking the Supreme Court to review his trial and conviction. In 1963, the court did so in Gideon v. Wainwright, and it established the principle that to have a fair trial in many court cases, the defendant must have a lawyer, and if the defendant cannot afford a lawyer, the court must appoint one free of charge to the defendant. Of course, this ruling applied to many more people than just Mr. Gideon — it helped protect the rights of accused people who were indigent. A reporter asked Mr. Gideon in 1972, “Do you feel like you accomplished something?” Mr. Gideon replied, “Well, I did.”

Thomas Garrett, a Quaker, was a fervent abolitionist. Once he was caught helping a slave woman and her child escape to freedom, and he was taken before a judge. The judge knew that Mr. Garrett was a man of his word, and he offered to let Mr. Garrett go free if he would give his word not to help any more runaway slaves. Mr. Garrett responded, “Friend, thee better proceed with thy business.” He was given a jury trial, found guilty, and was fined $8,000 — a lot of money now, but a huge amount of money before the Civil War. In fact, the fine, combined with business problems, made him bankrupt. After the trial, Mr. Garrett told the sheriff, “Friend, I have not a cent in the world, but if thee knows of a man needing a meal, send him to me.”

Two men who were engaged in a dispute came to R’ Avraham Yitzchak of Karlitch and asked him to make a ruling. For hours, the two men presented their cases, making argument after argument. After they had finished speaking, he quickly made his ruling, which the two men accepted, and the two men departed as friends. Afterwards, R’ Avraham Yitzchak was asked why he had listened for hours to arguments when the case was simple. He said, “Had I cut them off before each had his full say, neither of them would have been satisfied. Both would have felt that an injustice had been done. After I gave them all that time to say everything they had to say, they felt that justice was done, and they accepted the verdict gladly.”

For a while, closeted homosexuals were allowed to serve in the military provided they followed the rule, “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” This wasn’t always the case. Previously, homosexuals were discharged from the military when their sexual orientation was discovered. Once, a lesbian was chosen for jury duty. The judge told everyone who was selected for jury duty that “justice takes no holiday.” Hearing this, the lesbian stated that if she were in the military, she would be discharged. On the ground that “injustice should not take a holiday,” she asked to be discharged from jury duty. The judge did as she asked.

During the Joseph McCarthy era, Hazel Wolf, a Canadian-born secretary in a law office and a former member of the Communist Party (when being a member was popular in USAmerica — the Depression) was arrested and thrown into jail because the government wanted to try her and get her deported back to Canada. However, she got out of jail by paying bail — and promising not to leave the country. (At age 100, Ms. Wolf was still in Seattle and was an active advocate for the environment.)

Fiorello La Guardia served as a night-court judge during the Depression. One night, a woman appeared before him who was guilty of stealing food so she could feed her hungry children. Mr. La Guardia heard the case, then he ruled: “I fine you $10 for stealing, and I fine everyone else in this courtroom, myself included, 50 cents for living in a city where a woman is forced to steal to feed her children.” The money collected in the courtroom was used to pay the woman’s fine, and the leftover money was given to her.

Among his other occupations, Nasrudin was a judge. While listening to the beginning of a complicated case, he told the plaintiff, “I think that you are right.” Later, after hearing the defendant, Nasrudin told him, “I think that you are right.” When the clerk of the court asked him, “How can both the plaintiff and the defendant be right? One of them must be wrong,” Nasrudin replied, “I think that you are also right.”

Olivia Pound’s father was a Nebraska judge in the 19th century. Once, a lawyer who was also an alcoholic attempted to argue a case before him, even though the lawyer was obviously inebriated. The judge listened for a few minutes, then banged his gavel and ruled, “This case is postponed for two weeks. The lawyer is trying to practice before two bars at the same time. It can’t be done.”

As President, John F. Kennedy appointed his younger brother Robert Kennedy as Attorney General of the United States — a decision for which he was much criticized, in part because Bobby Kennedy was so young and inexperienced. President Kennedy explained his decision in this way: “Bobby wants to practice law, and I thought he ought to get a little experience first.”

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Copyright by Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved

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Robert Graves: The Next War

You young friskies who today
Jump and fight in Father’s hay
With bows and arrows and wooden spears,
Playing at Royal Welch Fusiliers,
Happy though these hours you spend,
Have they warned you how games end?
Boys, from the first time you prod
And thrust with spears of curtain-rod,
From the first time you tear and slash
Your long-bows from the garden ash,
Or fit your shaft with a blue jay feather,
Binding the split tops together,
From that same hour by fate you’re bound
As champions of this stony ground,
Loyal and true in everything,
To serve your Army and your King,
Prepared to starve and sweat and die
Under some fierce foreign sky,
If only to keep safe those joys
That belong to British boys,
To keep young Prussians from the soft
Scented hay of father’s loft,
And stop young Slavs from cutting bows
And bendy spears from Welsh hedgerows.
Another War soon gets begun,
A dirtier, a more glorious one;
Then, boys, you’ll have to play, all in;
It’s the cruellest team will win.
So hold your nose against the stink
And never stop too long to think.
Wars don’t change except in name;
The next one must go just the same,
And new foul tricks unguessed before
Will win and justify this War.
Kaisers and Czars will strut the stage
Once more with pomp and greed and rage;
Courtly ministers will stop
At home and fight to the last drop;
By the million men will die
In some new horrible agony;
And children here will thrust and poke,
Shoot and die, and laugh at the joke,
With bows and arrows and wooden spears,
Playing at Royal Welch Fusiliers.

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Every time one hears an “anti-war” message, one should recall the scenes from Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List” – particularly the one scene where SS Commandant Amon Goeth is up on his balcony casually plinking away at the people below with his rifle; particularly poignant is the one inmate who is suddenly aware that he is being targeted, yet just calmly keeps walking until a bullet catches up to him. He knew that he was helpless to do anything about the monster shooting at him. He was utterly defenseless. He had no means of FIGHTING BACK.
Accepting one’s fate, adopting pacifism, is giving up the struggle. To do that is to give up life. Lumping all violence together, equating aggressor with defender is grossly unjust. War, as a response to another’s aggression, is an expression of the will to live. Preparedness to meet aggressors with violence (such as kids playing at Welsh Fusiliers) is a life-affirming act. Meeting death while struggling for a life IN FREEDOM is certainly not the worst way to go! We all die someday. Some ways we meet our end are undoubtedly more noble than others.

A.E. Housman: Is My Team Ploughing?

clydesdale-1106337_1280
“Is my team ploughing,
   That I was used to drive
And hear the harness jingle
   When I was man alive?”
Ay, the horses trample,
   The harness jingles now;
No change though you lie under
   The land you used to plough.
“Is football playing
   Along the river shore,
With lads to chase the leather,
   Now I stand up no more?”
Ay the ball is flying,
   The lads play heart and soul;
The goal stands up, the keeper
   Stands up to keep the goal.
“Is my girl happy,
   That I thought hard to leave,
And has she tired of weeping
   As she lies down at eve?”
Ay, she lies down lightly,
   She lies not down to weep:
Your girl is well contented.
   Be still, my lad, and sleep.
“Is my friend hearty,
   Now I am thin and pine,
And has he found to sleep in
   A better bed than mine?”
Yes, lad, I lie easy,
   I lie as lads would choose;
I cheer a dead man’s sweetheart,
   Never ask me whose.
***

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