It is 3:00 am and the moonlit prairie outside the cabin window supplies the quiet solitude that is required for my contemplation. Most of my thoughts that become writings occur when my daytime procrastination eases into compelling concerns about the past or the future. Most of the past is a jumble of warm memories punctuated by occasional regrets; wasn’t that pleasant intertwined with why did I say or do that and why can’t I re-live the good and re-do the painful? And most of my forecast of the future is paved with unrealistic hopes and dread I will repeat missteps in spite of learned lessons I should be able to apply to similar new experiences. My circadian rhythm probably developed much as … [Read More...] about Tick Tock
Gavel Gamut
Recent Articles
Legends
What turns a passing incident into a legend? Fear is often involved or at least, apprehension. Hatred perhaps or maybe just sublimated envy. Villains and heroes, sinners and saints, hangers-on and barely aware casual observers may be recognized or may be unnoticed. Accurate observations may be misidentified while surmise and self-fulfilling yearnings might be confused by societies distracted by the sturm und drang of living. What we can be assured is that an occasional legend is required if we are going to sublimate our daily ennui and manage to muddle through. Great legends of history often arise on a “just-in-time, just-in-place” happenstance. Often, they appear as individuals but, more … [Read More...] about Legends
Coach Cignetti, The Philosopher King
Curt Cignetti was hired to be Indiana University’s football coach beginning with the 2024 college football season. In 2022 IU’s record was four wins and eight losses. For 2023 it was three wins and nine losses. In 2024 IU lost two games, one in the College Football Playoffs, and won eleven. IU just won the College Football National Championship for 2025-26 by being the only undefeated college team and posting sixteen wins and zero losses. IU started 2025 as history’s losingest college football program based on over 700 losses. A couple of basic questions are: How did IU go from the whale dung of college football to Marathon type victors (490 BC) and who wrought this miracle? Those are … [Read More...] about Coach Cignetti, The Philosopher King
Hallowed Halls of Laurel
HALLOWED HALLS OF LAUREL It is kinda’ like how I felt when the sister and two brothers I grew up with became a college professor, a world-class musician and a leading legal scholar. Where did that come from? Gentle Reader, you probably have had the same puzzlement about the neighbor kid you played house or marbles with who is recognized later in life by others as brilliant. You most likely ask yourself, “Who snatched their body away and replaced them with this heroic icon?” This Gavel Gamut could not be written until after Indiana University’s football team won the CFP semi-final game against Oregon on 09 January 2026; IU did! So, now the ultimate issue to be decided is, will IU beat Miami … [Read More...] about Hallowed Halls of Laurel
Therapy
America needs therapy; about 350 million counselors seems about right. Where to find them and how to compensate them are the seminal issues. As therapists always approach client treatment with the same, lone question, “How do you feel about that?”, the answers to America’s dilemmas and to each of our personal problems must lie within. We need only to bring forth for analysis the quandaries we are facing, then have other individuals or groups help us solve things for ourselves. For example, a Catholic penitent might say, “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned”; he or she divulges the sin, then does whatever penance, say ten Hail Mary’s, the priest decides will expiate those transgressions. … [Read More...] about Therapy
Highly Resolved
Abraham Lincoln published one of our nation’s solemn resolutions in his address at the dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on November 19, 1863. The over three thousand dead Union soldiers were the particular men Lincoln referenced that day. However, since President Lincoln’s main focus of the Civil War was to hold our country together, most likely he had in mind all the dead and wounded on both sides when he said: “…[W[e here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain…” That resolution was not made for a New Year, but it was a noble hope for our country’s future. From 1863 until 1914 this goal was fractured by almost continuous death and … [Read More...] about Highly Resolved
The Reasons For The Season
Clark Griswold is a Christmas everyman. He is to a family Christmas reunion what Oedipus was to reunions with his father, whom he kills, and his mother, whom he marries. Both Oedipus and Clark performed well intentioned acts which resulted in disasters. That illustrates one of the main problems for all writers after the Classical Age of Greece. Such playwrites and philosophers as Sophocles already wrote 2,500 years ago the plots the rest of us just keep repeating in different formats, such as this Gavel Gamut column. As for the hapless Clark Griswold, all he wants is to provide his family with “A good ‘ole family Christmas” and fate punishes his every move. By the end of the National … [Read More...] about The Reasons For The Season
A Wee Philosophy
Robert Burns (1759-1796), Scotland’s best-known poet and farmer, was ploughing his field one day when he upended a mouse’s winter nest. The poem Burns wrote in the original Scots language, “To A Mouse”, is as difficult to decipher as Peg and I found trying to comprehend conversations when we visited Scotland. Therefore, I will cite the English version that in part says to the “Little, sleek, cowering timorous beast”: “I’m truly sorry man’s dominion Has broken Nature’s social union, And justifies that ill opinion, Which makes you startle, At me, your poor earth-born companion and fellow mortal? …. But Mouse, you are not alone, In proving foresight may be vain: The best-laid schemes … [Read More...] about A Wee Philosophy
Time Is On Our Side
Over the two or three hundred thousand years we homo sapiens have created and destroyed countless cultures there has been a recurring philosophical debate over whether time is linear or circular. Do things occur once or do events repeat themselves? Is life finite or eternal? Will we find life after life has always been the great mystery. Most people are hesitant to test their hypothesis whichever they believe, hope or dread. Also, most of us who puzzle over the conundrum of time, who are most of us, agree with Viking Cruise Line Chairman Torstein Hagan who says, “Time is the only truly scarce commodity, so spend it wisely”. Of course, whether we are investing our time or squandering it is … [Read More...] about Time Is On Our Side
A New World Resolution
A new year is rapidly approaching. Hope for a better world is evidenced by universal blame placing, always onto someone else. Perhaps Jeffrey Epstein, or Donald Trump or Lane Kiffin or the idiot driving slowly in the passing lane. Or as Jimmy Buffett finally admitted in Margaritaville, “It was his own fault”. One thing each of us believes is it is never our fault. Yet, in a republic, the United States for example, it is the fault of all citizens since we either choose or allow to remain in office our representatives. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth may have ordered Admiral Frank Bradley to carry out Commander in Chief Donald Trump’s order to kill the people on the alleged drug boat on … [Read More...] about A New World Resolution
Sour Grapes
A plethora of professional football, a cornucopia of college football and, most importantly, the hallowed echoes of high school football. Thanksgiving brings out the America our Founders dreamed of, “A more perfect union”. One where the battles almost never involve fatal blows but where due process on the field requires impartial officials, the Judiciary (?), involved and spirited fans, citizens (?), teams with different positions, players and coaches who are leaders and standard bearers for the hopes of countless constituencies, fans (?). Peg and I almost surfeited on football last week but our stomachs have about recovered from gastronomical excess and our eyes and seats are ready for … [Read More...] about Sour Grapes
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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