On October 7, 2023 a force of Palestinians from the Gaza area adjacent to Israel launched an attack that lasted one day and killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Hamas has an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 fighters. Israel has 170,000 active military personnel with 450,000 reserves available for call up. Hamas has no air force or navy and attacked in jeeps, on motorcycles and with paragliders. Israel has many jet fighters-bombers, several warships including submarines, tanks and armored personnel carriers, and nuclear weapons. Why would the Hamas David challenge the Israeli Goliath? 1 Samuel 17. The Biblical David used a stone to bring down the heavily armored gigantic Philistine then cut off … [Read More...] about A Thrown Stone
Gavel Gamut
Recent Articles
Forever Hopeful
According to the International Court of Justice, the United Nations General Assembly and the United Nations Security Council, Israel has illegally controlled Gaza for many years. The Palestinian people live under what is effectively a military suppression in which Israel denies freedom of movement and self-determination to Palestinians. This situation is reminiscent of what American colonists faced from Great Britain before 1776 and what Native Americans faced from the United States. Resistance from the colonists and the Native Americans was called terrorism by the conquerors. Whatever one may think of Hamas, that is, evil terrorists or patriotic resistance fighters, it is probably … [Read More...] about Forever Hopeful
First Cousins and Neighbors
The Middle East is often called the Cradle of Civilization. Mesopotamia flourished between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers starting 4,000 years ago and Egypt became ascendant a thousand years earlier. During these 5,000 years there have been numerous cultures that have populated this region of Northern Africa and Middle Eastern Asia. Each of these peoples claims a part of this area of the earth as a homeland. This yearning by all involved and each’s legitimate historical claims have led to thousands of years of cooperation and conflict between and among these similar and related cultures. If the worst war is a civil war, the Middle East has seen the yang and yin of almost inexplicable … [Read More...] about First Cousins and Neighbors
A View of Killers of the Flower Moon
Peg and I saw the movie Killers of the Flower Moon Friday, October 20th. It exposes the numerous murders of Osage Native Americans one hundred years ago. The film rightly concentrates on the sins of the Killers and the victimization of the oil-wealthy Osages. I appreciate the light cast upon the deaths of the betrayed victims but, as one who was born and reared on the Osage Nation, I hope viewers realize the tribe were and are much more than victims. As I watched director Martin Scorsese’s 280-million-dollar epic and paean to the Osage victims I thought of the Osage friends I grew up with in the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s and to the Osages I live among today. On my desk is John Joseph Mathews’ … [Read More...] about A View of Killers of the Flower Moon
A Eulogy for the Victims of October 1878 Revisited
Since 1990 when German born American Ilse nee Dorsch Horachek made me aware of the tragedy of 1878, my wife Peg and I have researched, spoken, written and helped produce a short movie about those events. And in our historical novel, JUDGE LYNCH!, that we published in 2008 we called for a public monument to the victims to be erected on the southeast corner of the Posey County Courthouse campus where the bones of Daniel Harrison, Sr. may still be buried. Our principal focus has always been the injustice done to the victims and the shameful failings of our legal system. Finally, thanks mainly to teenager Sophie Kloppenburg with input from numerous others a memorial marker to the victims was … [Read More...] about A Eulogy for the Victims of October 1878 Revisited
A Dark Pall Lifted
This past Saturday, October 21, 2023 Posey County, Indiana held a vigil to honor the memories of Daniel Harrison, Sr., Daniel Harrison, Jr. John Harrison, Jim Good, William Chambers, Jeff Hopkins and Edward Warner, all Black men who were murdered the week of October 12, 1878. The vigil began at 10:00 am Saturday morning at the Alexandrian Public Library in Mt. Vernon and concluded at the courthouse square that evening. The commemoration was organized by Mt. Vernon teenager Sophie Kloppenburg and, much as the lynchings themselves, was a public event. The underlying circumstances leading to the lynchings were set out on the front page of the October/November 1878 editions of Mt. Vernon’s … [Read More...] about A Dark Pall Lifted
Passion vs. Purpose
In October 2022 Posey County, Indiana finally erected a memorial to the murders of five Black men on the courthouse campus the evening of October 12, 1878 and two more Black men earlier that week. For years numerous persons called for such a monument but it took the hard work and dedication of a Mt. Vernon, Indiana teenager, Sophie Kloppenburg, to get it erected. A one-year commemoration ceremony has been organized by Ms. Kloppenburg for 21 October 2023. The public is invited. Of the thousands of lynchings that have occurred in America over the years most have been the result of mob violence. A group of men, it was almost always white men fueled by prejudice and often alcohol, would rather … [Read More...] about Passion vs. Purpose
How Truth Comes Out
It is October, my favorite month. The air is cool but one can work and play outside without a heavy jacket. When we walk through the still yet green grass the heavy dew leaves interesting evidence of our intrusion. While October has always brought a sense of contemplation to me, ever since I was made aware of the tragic events of that fateful October of 1878 in Mt. Vernon, Posey County, Indiana, my reverie for the month of October is haunted by the murders of Daniel Harrison, Sr., John Harrison, Daniel Harrison, Jr., Jim Good, William Chambers, Jeff Hopkins and Ed Warner. Until March of 1990 I had no reason to be concerned about any spectres arising from my courthouse campus as I arrived … [Read More...] about How Truth Comes Out
An Armadillo Ranch?
On Sunday, September 18, 2023 some person or persons cut through the wire cages of a mink farm in Pennsylvania and released six to eight thousand minks that were bred for their fur. It is assumed animal rights activists freed the mink and released them upon the surrounding human populace who are being cautioned to not approach any escaped mink they may encounter as the animals are definitely not cuddly and they have no edible value. This event has exacerbated the ongoing debate between friends of the animal world, who probably cannot afford mink coats, and entrepreneurs and rich people. One objection from the Free Mink Now crowd is the mink are slaughtered just for their pelts; their flesh … [Read More...] about An Armadillo Ranch?
Not That Long Ago
My childhood friend and neighbor Gary Malone was killed in combat in Viet Nam July 28, 1966. On Sunday, September 10, 2023 President Biden stood in front of United States and Vietnamese flags and announced a strategic partnership with Viet Nam, more honestly identified as a pseudonym for military assistance. It is generally understood that this military realignment is to counter balance Viet Nam’s reliance on its neighbor China. China was North Viet Nam’s main supporter when the United States was fighting a 20-year war against it (1955-1975). Gary cannot express his feelings about his country’s rapprochement with the people our government sent him to fight. But I may soon get to see his … [Read More...] about Not That Long Ago
Mental Gymnastics
Former President Donald Trump is facing both state and federal charges in several courts of law. These charges present difficult challenges to the judges in each case with the most important judicial task being to guarantee that all parties receive a fair trial. However, that duty to the people directly impacted by each case must be carried out without violating the right that our Founders knew to be the right that was essential to guaranteeing all of our rights, Freedom of Speech. While several of the Founders championed freedom of expression as fundamental to democracy, Benjamin Franklin, a newspaper publisher himself, led the debate: “Freedom of speech is a pillar of a free … [Read More...] about Mental Gymnastics
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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