James M. Redwine

Gentle Readers

The Reasons For The Season

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At the Reed-Hembree Caroling Event, Cedar Ridge of Pawhuska, OK

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 Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation movie (1989), Clark has destroyed his and his neighbor’s homes, has enabled the explosion of a public sewer and the kidnapping of his boss by Clark’s idiot cousin. All-in-all, Clark’s nostalgic yearnings turn out to be just what many lovers of the Christmas season secretly dread is bound to be a fait accompli, no matter how hard they try to put the perfect bow on the Christmas family holiday.

At our home in our isolated prairie cabin, Peg makes sure we do not succumb to the vanities of a Perfect Family Christmas. She is forever hopeful and positive about what makes each season bright. She starts decorating for Christmas as soon as the pilgrim and turkey touches are put away even though nobody but she and I ever see even one of the “twinkling little lights” at JPeg Osage Ranch. Then she will begin orchestrating storing the Santa Clauses, etc., for 2026 before we finish our glasses of New Year’s champagne.

However, as Clark Griswold explains while he is standing among the ashes of his Christmas tree that burned up when his drunken Uncle Louis lit his cigar, Christmas means something different to everyone. It is not truly about presents and decorations but:

“The most enjoyable traditions of the season are best enjoyed
in the warm embrace of kith and kin.”

This is so even if there is geographical distance between us and our friends and family members.

Clark is right, even if it took a few disasters for him to realize what is truly important, and not just at Christmas. So, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to and from our family to yours, Gentle Readers!

Hot Wars and Cold Seats

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Photo by Peg Redwine

Each morning I look off my apartment balcony at the ships floating on the Black Sea that lies between the countries of Georgia on the southeast and Ukraine to Georgia’s northwest. So far the ships have remained of the merchant variety, but I always look first to make sure. Georgia is a country of four million people with virtually no way to defend itself. The Georgian government that fears Russia on Georgia’s northern border and the citizens of Georgia who fly Ukrainian blue and yellow flags are in constant yang and yin over the war being waged just across the Black Sea. The government worries about poking the Russian bear and the citizens publicly rally and demonstrate in support of the Ukraine population.

Recently Russia has been stirring up its long held relationship with the country of Belarus that lies between Russia’s western border and Ukraine’s northern border. Belarus is in the same military condition as Georgia. Belarus, as led by the politically embattled president Alexander Lukashenko, with its nine million citizens, is even more supine to Russia’s might than Georgia. Therefore, Belarus does not pretend to resist Russian moves to use Belarus as a staging ground for Russia’s military and probable invasion of Ukraine. At the very least, Belarus provides Russia with a vital logistical path for re-supply of its military.

Belarus Flag in Batumi, Georgia. Photo by Peg Redwine

This morning, December 15, 2022, I am gazing at the tankers and grain ships right outside my window and, as we humans often experience, a totally unrelated memory of a simpler time comes to mind. In 1954 my family had a new Ford automobile, the kind with front fenders. Some of you will remember fenders and maybe will have even ridden on them to deliver newspapers as my brother Philip and I used to when we could wheedle Mom into driving us along our paper route. In 1954 the Korea War was over and our generation’s war in Viet Nam had not yet begun. The hero of the Normandy Landing of WWII, Dwight Eisenhower, was president of the United States and America was keeping the Soviet Union on its heels, not with bombs but with the humanitarian Marshall Plan.

In those halcyon days in Pawhuska, Oklahoma the Pawhuska Journal Capital newspaper was owned and operated by Glen Van Dyke and Phil and I had one of the delivery routes. We would go to the Journal Capital office on Kihekah Avenue and get bundles of papers. Phil and I would fold them into five-point throwing projectiles and fill two canvas bags that we hung over the Ford’s hood ornament. We each sat on a fender and competed for distance and accuracy as we banged the papers off the porches of our neighbors who sometimes complained to our parents.

I did not read the Journal Capital then and never had any inclination at age 11 to write a column in it. However, I do remember my mother and father sitting at the kitchen table and laughing at Glen’s witty sayings in his regular column. I still remember Mom and Dad laughing out loud when Glen complained that modern science seemed to be able to create hand warmers and foot warmers but for some reason could not come up with a toilet seat warmer. Gentle Readers, that was almost 70 years ago and, while we are now on our way to Mars, we still have not cracked the code on toilet seats. However, we seem to still be sending vast amounts of aid to keep the Russians on their heels.

Photo by Peg Redwine

Affirmation Finally

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I wrote the first of my over 900 “Gavel Gamut” columns in 1990 at the request of my friend, Jim Kohlmeyer. Jim was the Posey County, Indiana Republican Party Chairman and the owner of the New Harmony Times newspaper (now The Posey County News owned by my friend, Dave Pearce).

Jim had recently purchased the paper and was desperate for filler. He asked me, the Democrat, elected, Posey County Circuit Court Judge, to write a column about “legal topics.” Jim did not care what I wrote. Since 1990 and every week since April of 2005 I have written about topics from local heroes to national issues as I saw fit. As those of you, Gentle Readers, will note, in several of my burnt offerings my wife, Peg, had to bear the brunt of my ramblings. However, most of “Gavel Gamut” has dealt with legal topics. A major theme has been the legal system, particularly judges. The federal courts and especially the United States Supreme Court have been the recipients of my chagrin over these thirty-two years during all of which I have served and am still serving as a judge myself. Although after thirty-eight years on the Bench as a partisan-elected judge I term-limited myself and now serve in other judicial venues, such as the Country of Georgia and the National Judicial College.

As I have written numerous times, my belief is that our American democracy is in danger from non-elected, life-tenured judges. I have stated this position frequently and I hold to it firmly.

However, even though I have often expected returning brickbats from those who champion appointing judges and granting them life-tenure, almost nobody has seemed to ever take umbrage from or stated their agreement with my position until October 3, 2022

Then, voila, along came that great journalist and philosopher, Fareed Zakaria whose excellent Sunday morning CNN show, GPS The Global Public Square, is the only national news program I find to contain news. On October 3, 2022 at 8:00 p.m. Fareed aired his special, “Supreme Power, Inside the Highest Court in the Land.”

Now, Gentle Readers, I am not claiming, although I wish I could, that Dr. Zakaria has ever heard of, much less been influenced by my analysis on any subject. However, his special clearly stated one of the greatest current dangers to our democracy is life-tenured members of the U.S. Supreme Court and the totally politicized method of their selection process.

            Let me say this about that (as President John F. Kennedy used to say), AMEN, brother Fareed!

Cowboy Up!

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Before October 4, 1957 when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 American boys knew who they admired and what they wanted to be, cowboys. From the days of Hoot Gibson and Tom Mix to Hopalong Cassidy and the Durango Kid until Gene Autry and Roy Rogers boys of all backgrounds dreamed the same dream. Then America watched as our global boogeyman leapfrogged over us and put us in fear of destruction from above. Cowboys’ six guns became obsolete and American boys, girls too, dreamed of being astronauts. John Glenn orbited the earth aboard a new fire-breathing steed and from 1957 until Clint Eastwood’s movie The Good, The Bad and The Ugly that came out in 1966 during the throes of the Viet Nam War American boys left cowboys in the dust. However, since this is America, a sense of emergency and panic can only be maintained a short while before we revert to our roots.

As a one-time American boy I made the same progression. I fell back from my completely unrealistic dream of becoming a physicist to my only somewhat unrealistic, albeit subdued and hidden yearning, to be a cowboy. Returning to the days of Gene Autry was much easier than facing the reality that I will not be helping to settle Mars. However, the declining dreams of a young boy are themselves sometimes painful to reconstruct when one is separated from them by time. But the fates did recently allow me an opportunity to kind of revisit those thrilling days of yesteryear. I got to herd one cow.

Now, when I was playing cowboys and Indians with the neighborhood boys in Pawhuska, Osage County, Oklahoma in the 1950’s several of my friends were, in fact, real Indians and several of them were, in fact, the sons of real cowboys. Of course, since we boys had not yet had the advantage of adult myopia we were unaffected by the niceties of who was supposed to be what. We all were whatever the scenario we thought up called for. Alas, we grew up, sort of.

However, let me return to my recent opportunity to turn back the clock to the dreams of grade school days. When Peg and I bought a cabin in rural Osage County a few months ago we not only found a new home but also a new friend who was the prior owner and a real cowboy. How lucky was that? Anyway, Johnny runs some cattle on our place and those cattle are like the rest of us; they do not always stay put. Occasionally a cow will find its way out onto the public road. Such was the case yesterday. So, as my brother and I were heading to Bartlesville about 20 miles from our cabin to run errands for Peg, we encountered a large black cow with a white face happily munching on the right-of-way bluestem grass. I saw my chance to live that five-year-old boy’s dreams.

I jumped out of my pickup and approached that cow with a confidence that can only come from ignorance. As I got closer and closer to the bovine behemoth, instead of her fearing me as I anticipated she took the attitude of a large animal upset by someone interrupting her dinner. Having neither horse nor rope nor the ability to use either had I had them I retreated and called for backup on my cell phone.

“Johnny, it’s Jim. One of your cows is out.”

“Jim, I’m in Oklahoma City.”

“Johnny, what the devil do you want me to do?”

“Why, nothing Jim, unless you want to. I’ll be back in The Osage in a few hours and I’ll deal with it. This is cowboy work.”

Well, Johnny is obviously a true psychologist as that last statement cut deep into my boyhood psyche. I just clicked off my phone and girded my loins up about me as I ran towards Miss Bossie and waved my arms. Apparently she was so amused she decided to amble back into her pasture and I shut the gate behind her.

Now I know some of you Gentle Readers are probably thinking this event may not be quite as impressive as The Lone Ranger cleaning out a nest of rustlers. But to me it’s just a matter of degree. They both qualify for cowboy status. My dreams have finally come true. I’m going to buy a hat and boots and find a drugstore where I can prop my boots up on the bar rail, tip my hat back and sip a sarsaparilla.

Two Auspicious Days

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The seven day period beginning April 08 and ending April 15 has two important days, one joyous and one sad. April 08 is Peg’s birthday. Please wish her happiness and strength as she deals with having me home a lot more now. As to the other significant anniversary, Abraham Lincoln died on April 15, 1865. As if paying our taxes on April 15 was not already sad enough.

Of course, there is a certain historic connection between federal income taxes and President Lincoln. He helped institute the first federal income tax to pay for the Civil War, which was fought to preserve the Union. However, after the Civil War ended the income tax was also ended until 1916 when it was made permanent by the 16th Amendment to the Constitution.

Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois claim Lincoln for our own but hardly anyone lays claim to the income tax. As Peg and I will wait until 11:59 p.m. on April 15 to pay ours we assume we will have a lot of fellow travelers. It is widely accepted that the major need for America to impose taxes on itself is to pay for wars or the preparation for potential wars. Oh, we expend a lot for various other things too such as salaries and expense accounts for Congress people, Executive Branch workers and judges, health care and the clean up after celebrations such as inaugurations and ticker-tape parades to honor sports teams. I am assured by those involved in these endeavors our hard earned money is well spent.

If you are like me you put Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in a separate rarified class from other presidents. And while George Washington never visited Posey County, Indiana as did Abraham Lincoln (thanks to my friend and historian Jerry King for this information), I note Washington managed to birth our nation without a federal income tax. Anyway, I forgive Lincoln since he took the time to dedicate a bridge in Savah, Posey County, Indiana in 1844 when he was campaigning for Henry Clay (1777-1852); Clay lost. Maybe those early Hoosiers suspected Abraham Lincoln might someday start an income tax.

Well, income taxes and the Civil War aside, Abraham Lincoln still has much to teach us about humility, compromise, mercy, justice and just plain decency. And as for Peg’s birthday, I am going to celebrate it by thanking you Gentle Readers who have been kind enough to commiserate with her as she has often served as a foil in these articles over the many years!

Don’t Tread On Her

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Should you be among the vast legions of loyal Gamut readers who read and preserved last week’s column you will no doubt have committed to memory the conversation between our contemporary Adam and Eve, ergo Jim and Peg, concerning the glories of spring.

Unfortunately, another of those readers was Peg. Usually she just types up my burnt offerings as rapidly as she can without deigning to take the slightest note. However, since her name was mentioned she actually read and was not amused by last week’s “Fair and Balanced” exposition of hers and my differing approaches to the Earth’s yearly awakening. Peg has demanded a retraction in lieu of filing a lawsuit or worse.

I spent at least five seconds resisting her unreasonable and incessant demands then remembered what Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) wrote:

The Female of the Species

WHEN the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride,
He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside.
But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

Nag the basking cobra hears the careless foot of man,
He will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it if he can.
But his mate makes no such motion where she camps beside the trail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

When the early Jesuit fathers preached to Hurons and Choctaws,
They prayed to be delivered from the vengeance of the squaws.
‘Twas the women, not the warriors, turned those stark enthusiasts pale.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

Man’s timid heart is bursting with the things he must not say,
For the Woman that God gave him isn’t his to give away;
But when hunter meets with husbands, each confirms the other’s tale—
The female of the species is more deadly than the male.

Man, a bear in most relations—worm and savage otherwise,—
Man propounds negotiations, Man accepts the compromise.
Very rarely will he squarely push the logic of a fact
To its ultimate conclusion in unmitigated act.

Fear, or foolishness, impels him, ere he lay the wicked low,
To concede some form of trial even to his fiercest foe.
Mirth obscene diverts his anger—Doubt and Pity oft perplex
Him in dealing with an issue—to the scandal of The Sex!

But the Woman that God gave him, every fibre of her frame
Proves her launched for one sole issue, armed and engined for the same;
And to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail,
The female of the species must be deadlier than the male.

She who faces Death by torture for each life beneath her breast
May not deal in doubt or pity—must not swerve for fact or jest.
These be purely male diversions—not in these her honour dwells—
She the Other Law we live by, is that Law and nothing else.

She can bring no more to living than the powers that make her great
As the Mother of the Infant and the Mistress of the Mate.
And when Babe and Man are lacking and she strides unclaimed to claim
Her right as femme (and baron), her equipment is the same.

She is wedded to convictions—in default of grosser ties;
Her contentions are her children, Heaven help him who denies!—
He will meet no suave discussion, but the instant, white-hot, wild,
Wakened female of the species warring as for spouse and child.

Unprovoked and awful charges—even so the she-bear fights,
Speech that drips, corrodes, and poisons—even so the cobra bites,
Scientific vivisection of one nerve till it is raw
And the victim writhes in anguish—like the Jesuit with the squaw!

So it comes that Man, the coward, when he gathers to confer
With his fellow-braves in council, dare not leave a place for her
Where, at war with Life and Conscience, he uplifts his erring hands
To some God of Abstract Justice—which no woman understands.

And Man knows it! Knows, moreover, that the Woman that God gave him
Must command but may not govern—shall enthral but not enslave him.
And She knows, because She warns him, and Her instincts never fail,
That the Female of Her Species is more deadly than the Male.

(Thanks to my friend Sam Blankenship for directing me to this warning.)

Anyway, Gentle Readers (at least of the male persuasion), I am confident you will agree with me on two points: (1) Peg was dead wrong; and, (2) I would be foolish to say so!