My Mother the Juror

Jun 21, 2023

My mother served on a petit jury when she was 75 and had the time of her life. It was an excuse to dress up for court; the jurors exchanged pictures of their children or grandchildren and brought in food to share on Fridays. They stayed in touch for years afterwards.

One day, she sent a letter to the judge asking for a day off so she could see her oncologist. She included a package of candy in the envelope with the note, “I hear you like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.” The judge put the request on the record, granted her request and said, “unless anyone has an objection, I’m keeping the candy.”

In opening statements, the prosecutor painted a lurid picture of stolen money, boob jobs and strippers. Unfortunately, the first witness was a records custodian from BellSouth. My mother said that all men on the jury jockeyed for position since they thought the witness was one of the strippers. Poor girl.

At the conclusion of the trial, the judge read out the standard admonition to the parties telling them not to approach or bother jurors. He told the jurors they were under no obligation to speak to the parties about the case. There was a codefendant in the case; he was found not guilty. My mother went out into the hallway, cornered him, and shaking her finger at the “not guilty” man told him, “Buddy, you got a break. Don’t do it again.”

The trial took place in the West Palm Beach Division of the U.S. District Court, the same division—and perhaps the same courthouse at 301 Clematis Street—where Donald Trump is to be tried this fall.

Expect anything.

Jun 21, 2023

App Test

Let’s see if it works.

Initial Thoughts about Trump Indictment

Jun 10, 2023

It’s hard not to be dramatic in response to this. First, the indictment proves my point that classified information is radioactive. Lawyers should not accept a clearance in a criminal trial.

A Roosevelt moment. Republicans pushed the 22nd Amendment to avoid another Roosevelt. The Amendment ended up prohibiting another Reagan term. The risk to a sitting president is trumped-up criminal liability might be created after he leaves office. The safest move is to stay in office. Declare martial law? Inconceivable. But on Wednesday, indicting a former president was pretty much inconceivable.

Equal protection: Pence, Biden, Clinton and Obama all had classified info and were not indicted.

Politics: 70% of Americans believe this indictment is political as do I.

Does anyone honestly believe that Trump was acting as an espionage agent of a foreign government? I do not.

The case will be decided based on jury instructions, and I don’t think there are pattern instructions for this crime.

Whatever your views on Trump, this indictment is a huge mistake. The case will tear the country apart.

I don’t know why Trump kept the documents. Research for his memoirs? Probably it has something to do with his belief that he was rightfully elected. Does that turn the trial into a trial on the 2020 election?

With You and I

Jun 9, 2023

Mind your Pronouns

Hoss Missed Few Meals

I heard a native speaker say, “They can come with you and I.”

This is incorrect. Here, the word “I,” a subject pronoun, is used instead of the correct “me.”

Would you say, “They can come with I?”

Of course not. You’d say, “They can come with me.

I ascribe this error to an episode of the television show Bonanza where a one-room frontier schoolhouse teacher forced her barely literate charges to always use the pronoun “I.”

Me can’t think of any other explanation.

Patti Smith

Jun 9, 2023

Patti is a poet; friend of Robert Mapplethorpe (she wrote about him in Just Kids.) She was part of the 70’s New York Lower East Side Renaissance, born too late for the Beats she nevertheless followed the spirit of Rimbaud and made friends with William Burroughs, he of Junky, Naked Lunch, and his wife’s murderer. She was an accomplished poet, seeing her work published in the zines of the day.

Patti’s breakthrough was to set her poetry to music; the poem Oath with a back-up band led to her first album, Horses. A collaboration with Bruce Springsteen and a #1 hit record followed.

Then she retreated to the Midwest and married life, only to emerge twenty years later as if nothing had happened. Before you adjudge Patti of “aberrant behavior,” keep in mind that the rules she follows are those of the French poetes maudites: Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud; those who sought insight through a derangement of the senses. Only by that standard can she be judged. Political activist she was not; something tells me that she would not suffer Republican book clubs in the Detroit suburbs at all. Patti a sell-out?

Pas possible.