Julius Caesar was assassinated by his fellow Romans on March 15, 44 B.C. Brutus and his co-conspirators used numerous stab wounds for the job. Our government is using the unrelenting Chinese torture of taxes: drip, drip, drip until our Body Politic is exsanguinated. At least Jules did not have to inflict his own wounds. Our governments, federal, state and county, require us to report upon ourselves and furnish our public “servants” with the means of ruining our lives if we do not. It is not like any of us does not realize we have an obligation to contribute to public services. I like driving on paved roads and drinking clean water. What turns our gratitude for our collective governments’ … [Read More...] about The Ides of April
Gavel Gamut
Recent Articles
Where’s the Wizard?
In the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz based on the book by L. Frank Baum, Dorothy and her dog, Toto, are swept up by a tornado and dropped into the Land of Oz. Dorothy has fantastic adventures and meets fanciful characters such as The Cowardly Lion, The Tin Man with no heart, The Scarecrow with no brain, and The Wicked Witch of the West who has bad intentions. Most importantly, she meets The Wizard of Oz who is masquerading as an all-powerful ruler but is exposed to be a graven image. What Dorothy learns from her trials and tribulations in Oz is, “There’s no place like home” and the true Yellow Brick Road is the one that takes you there. On April Fool’s Day, Peg and I and a lot of other … [Read More...] about Where’s the Wizard?
Spring Forward
Tuesday, March 19, 2024 was the Vernal Equinox. The sun was directly over the earth’s equator and husbands throughout the world saw their sublime winter days replaced by wives who feel compelled to build nests, or more correctly, to exhort their husbands to help do so. Peg does not care that we live in the country and no one can even see our yard from the nearest road. When spring arrives, my reverie ends. Watching sports on TV fades in the glow of longer days that demand immediate attention to countless tasks that must be attended to, “Right Now!” Never mind that not one of these matters mattered until the ponds stopped freezing over. The inexhaustible energy of a wife in springtime is … [Read More...] about Spring Forward
Prometheus Revisited
A few days ago I received a telephone call in the early morning from my neighbor who owns the ranch immediately east of our property, “Jim, can we cross your place with some fire-fighting trucks and volunteers? Our controlled burn is not controlled. It may jump over on you.” “Sure, anything I can help with?” Of course, as a judge neither I nor anyone else ever expects me to do anything except watch and listen, but I thought I should offer. “Just keep an eye on things; it should be okay if the wind doesn’t pick up or if it changes from westerly to eastward. My cowboys and I will be coming through soon.” Controlled burning in the early spring and fall when the land is more moist and seeds … [Read More...] about Prometheus Revisited
We Weren’t Heavy
My grandfather Redwine was born in 1848 in Walls, Georgia. After the Civil War he traveled to Indian Country, married and had five children. After his first wife died young, he married my grandmother who was a widow with six children. Together they had seven more children, of which my father was next to the youngest. My grandfather was a Baptist minister who may have known the Bible but unfortunately was careless in his choice of pulpits. He was preaching to a camp meeting while standing on a buckboard hitched to a skittish horse that got spooked by grandpa’s vociferous sermon. The horse bolted, grandpa lost his balance, fell off, hit his head and died. He was buried on the spot by … [Read More...] about We Weren’t Heavy
Thanks, Robert
Last week my friend and fellow member of the Fourth Estate, Robert Smith, published a commentary on the appropriateness of mixing religion and government; it isn’t. In adopting the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the 1776ers relied on the wisdom gained from thousands of years of bad experiences of religion being misused by those in power. It is no accident that Freedom of and from Religion and Freedom of Expression and the Press are joined: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people … [Read More...] about Thanks, Robert
The Game
Those of you who have read my historical novel, Echoes of Our Ancestors: The Secret Game, know of the actual 1924 football game that was played in Osage County, Oklahoma between the Native American school boys from Haskell Indian Institute in Lawrence, Kansas and professional players from Kansas City. What was planned to be an exhibition game to encourage wealthy Osage and Quapaw Indians to contribute money for a new stadium at Haskell, became a gambling extravaganza where more than 200,000 dollars changed hands and thousands more were contributed for the stadium. The game was the brainchild of head Haskell football coach, Frank McDonald, whose exhibition spun out of his control when … [Read More...] about The Game
Alexei Navalny
Forty-seven-year-old lawyer and politician Alexei Navalny died in a Russian prison February 16, 2024. He was serving a nineteen-year sentence for opposing and exposing the corrupt government of Vladimir Putin. Navalny had survived an August, 2020 poisoning through treatment at a hospital in Berlin, Germany. He voluntarily returned to Russia in January, 2021 where he was arrested and imprisoned. He is survived by his widow Yulia neé Abrosimova Navalnaya who has staunchly supported Alexei’s courageous public struggle for justice. Yulia vows to continue their Quixotic crusade. Why continue and what has Navalny’s life mattered are pervading questions? Navalny was born in Russia June 04, 1976. … [Read More...] about Alexei Navalny
Not So Fast Chiefs
On Monday morning, February 19, 2024 as Kansas City Chiefs football coach Andy Reid was savoring his team’s Super Bowl victory along with his third breakfast pastry, team Executive Officer Clark Hunt hurried into Reid’s office and presented him with a legal notice from one Trump-appointed Federal District Judge in San Francisco, the sole Republican in California. Coach Reid read the following Petition as his blood pressure soared: “All persons affiliated in any way with the National Football League team the Kansas City Chiefs are ordered to immediately Cease and Desist claiming victory in Super Bowl LVIII pending a Score Recalculation Petition filed by the San Francisco 49ers in this Court … [Read More...] about Not So Fast Chiefs
Femme Fatales
William Shakespeare is the English language’s greatest writer, in part, because he was our greatest psychologist. No one understood and used irony as did Shakespeare. Hamlet, with Shakespeare’s tongue firmly planted in his cheek, laments, “Frailty thy name is woman”. Hamlet who is the unquestioned definition of vacillation, “To be or not to be,” is casting shade upon his mother, Gertrude. Gertrude was complicit and conspired in the murder of her husband, Hamlet’s father also named Hamlet, the King of Denmark, so she could marry his younger brother, Claudius. Gertrude also helped Claudius defeat her son’s rightful claim to inherit the crown. Hamlet, Act 1, scene ii. But the first woman to … [Read More...] about Femme Fatales
Equal Protection
CNN reports that Americans’ confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court: “[I]s at its lowest ebb in terms of public opinion in the history of Gallop polling.” CNN attributes much of this lack of faith in the competence and integrity of the Court to the overruling of Roe vs. Wade in 2022. Then, even three members of the Court publicly dissented and accused the six-member majority of playing politics. Justices Breyer, Kagan and Sotomayor dissented in Dobbs v. Jackson that overruled Roe and stated: “Today, the proclivities of individuals rule. The Court departs from its obligation to faithfully and impartially apply the law.” The essence of the dissenters’ warning was that the majority was … [Read More...] about Equal Protection
Books
Unanimous for Murder
Live on Amazon.com and Kindle eBooks!
Unanimous for Murder picks up where JUDGE LYNCH! left off. A gripping story of small town murder and judicial shenanigans on the western frontier when the western frontier was east of the Mississippi.
Echoes of Our Ancestors: The Secret Game
Jim’s new novel tells the exciting story of a long hidden but important football game that occurred between representatives of Haskell Indian Institute (now the Haskell Indian Nations University) and professionals from the then Kansas City Cowboys in 1924 at a secret location on the Osage Indian Nation near Pawhuska, Oklahoma - where Jim was born.
JUDGE LYNCH!
“Judge Lynch Holds Court!” That was the banner headline in a Posey County, Indiana newspaper after seven African American men were murdered by a white mob during October, 1878.
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Gavel Gamut Greetings from JPeg Ranch
“Gavel Gamut Greetings" is an anthology of topical and historical selections mainly about regional events and personalities that have appeared in my weekly newspaper column, Gavel Gamut.
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