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mental health

Brothers From Other Mothers

January 27, 2023 by Peg Leave a Comment

Photo by Peg Redwine

This week I ran into a man whose family has connections to Ukraine. They live in the country of Georgia now as Peg and I have been doing for the last five months where we are working with the Georgian judiciary. His perspective on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is quite personal as is the perspective of the Russian man who sat next to me on a flight from Istanbul, Turkey to Batumi, Georgia last Wednesday.

The two men looked quite similar. Both were rather tall and athletically built and about 40 years of age. One man’s native language is English but the other speaks fluent Russian. His English created several entertaining exchanges for us that we worked through in mutual good humor. My Russian barely qualifies as communication even though Peg and I picked up some phrases when I was in Russia in 2003 working with the Russian judiciary.

I also managed to pick up a few Ukrainian words when I was in Ukraine in 2000 working with Ukrainian judges. I tried my Ukrainian lexicon with the man whose relatives speak Ukrainian, but it was more comic relief than communication.

Both men have children and both would like to see the war between Russia and Ukraine ended immediately if it can be done in a reasonable manner as each sees it. Peg and I are much more aligned with Ukraine than Russia, which the Russian obviously suspected when I told him at our mutual introduction Peg and I were Americans. He was initially rather cautious in his comments but once he decided I did not hold him responsible for Putin’s military decisions, he relaxed quite a bit. Unfortunately, our flight was only about two hours in length so he and I did not have time to bring Ukraine and Russia to the Peace Table.

He did share several deeply personal experiences and emotions with me during our short flight. When I told him our son had boxed at West Point and that I had helped train both amateur and professional boxers, he opened his mouth and showed me a set of perfect lower teeth. He said he had boxed in Russia and once got into the ring against a much larger boxer without wearing a mouthpiece. He had $3,000 worth of false teeth and a hard-earned lesson about uneven and unfair fights as a result.

The English speaker is a swimmer and an avid hiker who believes physical health is essential to mental health and both men do not hesitate to strongly state their views which are closely related to what kind of future their children may look forward to in a post Ukrainian-Russian war environment.

If the two fathers were to be placed together in a lineup, I would have a difficult time picking out which one was which. Both are about 6 feet tall and weigh about 200 pounds. Both have very short cropped, light colored hair and lean facial features. They could be brothers if looks were the only criteria.

They could, also, be brothers if their concerns for their families and their countries could be considered relevant DNA features. It struck me that both of them might be better choices for leaders of Ukraine and Russia than what we have, although this is purely my thought, as neither of them made such a suggestion. Of course, their natural national allegiances probably interfere somewhat with their ability to set aside any magnanimity. However, each of them recognized the children in the other country are not to blame; only the adults may be held accountable. That is, if the adults come to a realization they should be.

I shared with each man my concern that Russia might be of the same mind a friend of mine who was a supporter of Israel had in 1973 when Egypt could have overrun Israel with its superior, but non-nuclear, military power. At that time most experts believed Israel had stolen enough nuclear secrets from America to construct nuclear weapons. Now, we know they have.

Anyway, my friend stated his passionate support for Israel included Israel’s “right” to destroy the whole world if Egypt were about to destroy Israel. Such nihilistic blindness is what I and my new acquaintances most fear in our current war.

 

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Filed Under: America, Family, Gavel Gamut, Russia, Ukraine Tagged With: Batumi, boxing, brothers, Georgia, Istanbul, James M. Redwine, Jim Redwine, judges, mental health, nihilistic blindness, physical health, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, uneven and unfair fights, war, West Point

Bowled Over

December 29, 2021 by Peg Leave a Comment

Photo by Peg Redwine

Much as the Summer Solstice ushers in the ennui of torturously less daylight each day, as each of the forty-four college football bowl games is completed the dark pall of life without football forces us to put down our beer, get off the couch and go back to work. I accept that COVID is a significant issue but so is mental health. And one of America’s best palliatives for depression in the gray days of winter is watching other people risk their well-being on the football field.

The first college football game was played on November 06, 1869 between Rutgers and Princeton in New Jersey; one hundred people attended the game that Rutgers won 06-04. The first college bowl game was the Tournament of Roses’ East-West game (The Rose Bowl) played on January 01, 1902 between the University of Michigan Wolverines and the Stanford University Cardinal; there were eight thousand-five hundred spectators. Michigan won 49-0 and Stanford quit with eight minutes left to play. That first bowl game was initiated to increase interest in Pasadena, California as a tourist destination and to market the surrounding area and its products. All bowl games since that first one have had similar goals. The outcome of the games is not of paramount concern to most.

The attendance at such highly hyped events as the Tailgreeter Cure Bowl between Coastal Carolina University and Northern Illinois University on December 17, 2021 is indicative of the lack of fanaticism at most bowl games; 9,784, about the same number of fans who showed up for that first Rose Bowl. The bodies in the stadiums at bowl games are not the targets, eyeballs on TV advertising and promotion of each venue are.

As for the schools and players involved, they may have analogous goals. The colleges want to showcase their products and make some money and some players have hopes of enhancing their football futures either as players, coaches or announcers. In other words, the first bowl game was for exhibition purposes and, except for the payout by major sponsors to each school, that is still the overriding rational.

With that in mind I have a few suggestions on how we can incorporate the goals of all involved, or watching, with the ever-expanding number of college bowl games. As I mentioned earlier, we already have 44 bowls. It would require an addition of only 8 more to be able to have one bowl game every week of the year. Surely such eager potential sponsors as Bitcoin or China would pony-up for a chance to showcase their greatness. Maybe a bidding war could be encouraged between Jeff Bezos and Mark Cuban or Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. Israel and Iran could promise to dismantle their nuclear ambitions and sell their peaceful intentions via commercials. Surely Facebook and TikToc would want to play.

One might wonder how one extra, exhibition-type game could be woven into a school’s regular football schedule. From the quality of play of most bowl games and with countless players opting to sit out, it is apparent that just showing up for one more Saturday should not be a problem. When my friends and I played Friday night football it was not unusual for some of us to show up the following Saturday morning for an impromptu, unorganized sandlot game just because. A lot of bowl games have a similar feel.

This system would expand college football perpetually and solve the ego problem for such “sponsors” as Jimmy Kimmel who endowed the Jimmy Kimmel LA Bowl. America could probably easily come up with underwriters such as Donald Trump and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Heck, I humbly suggest the Jim Redwine Armadillo Bowl might draw a nod or two and Peg and I will kick in fifty bucks apiece if that would suffice. We could host it in a pasture at JPeg Osage Ranch if the resident varmints do not too strongly object and if fans do not mind sitting on the ground. TV rights could be negotiated.

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Filed Under: America, COVID-19, Events, Football, Gavel Gamut, JPeg Osage Ranch, Middle East, Oklahoma, Osage County, Personal Fun Tagged With: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bitcoin, China, college football bowl games, COVID, depression, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Facebook, gray days of winter, Iran, Israel, James M. Redwine, Jeff Bezos, Jim Redwine, Jim Redwine Armadillo Bowl, Jimmy Kimmel LA Bowl, JPeg Osage Ranch, Mark Cuban, Mark Zuckerberg, mental health, Rutgers vs Princeton, Summer Solstice, Tailgreeter Cure Bowl, The Rose Bowl, TikTok, Tournament of Roses

Hello From Reno

April 13, 2018 by Peg Leave a Comment

At their regular meeting held 03 April 2018 the Posey County Board of Commissioners listened attentively and courteously to my plans for an auxiliary courtroom. President Jim Alsop and Commissioners Jay Price and Carl Schmitz asked relevant questions and made helpful suggestions.

A small but highly useful courtroom can be in operation on the first floor of the courthouse within a short time and for relatively little expense, certainly less than $50,000 for the physical plant and about $40,000 per year salary for a full-time court reporter. The judicial officer could be a senior judge or magistrate who would serve as needed. Senior judges are paid by the State of Indiana so there would be no cost to Posey County for a per diem judge. A magistrate would probably have to be paid by the county.

The Posey Circuit Court has not been allowed a new court reporter position for twenty years although I have noted the real need in several budget requests and our caseload has grown dramatically since 1998. The new full-time court reporter could be dedicated to this new court but could help relieve the burden on the existing court reporters when not in session with the on-call judge(s). Mental health, juvenile delinquency, Children in Need of Services and other confidential or sensitive hearings that usually involve few people but can be emotionally draining or rambunctious as well as numerous logistical matters that strain the regular Judge’s docket could be conducted in this smaller courtroom.

And Posey County’s Sheriff and Judges have long sought video capability for inmates, expert witnesses, disabled persons and numerous other routine matters, warrant applications, for example, or confidential electronic meetings between clients and attorneys.

The Commissioners sought to have a joint meeting about these issues with the Posey County Council on April 17, 2018 but schedules of all the necessary participants could not be accommodated for that date. The Commissioners wanted Chief Probation Officer Rodney Fetcher and me to set forth our plans then. As fortune would have it, I had planned to attend that April 17th meeting, but the Commissioners and Council had to reschedule it to May 01, 2018. Rodney will be there prepared to respond to any inquiries, but I will be helping teach other judges at the National Judicial College in Reno, Nevada on that day. Perhaps I can call in or attend electronically. I know we could work out such a video/audio conference if our new courtroom were already in operation.

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Filed Under: Circuit Court, Gavel Gamut, Judicial, Law, Posey County Tagged With: Chief Probation Officer Rodney Fetcher, Children in Need of Services, Commissioner Carl Schmitz, Commissioner Jay Price, confidential electronic meetings, confidential hearings, disabled persons, expert witnesses, full-time court reporter, James M. Redwine, Jim Redwine, judicial officer, juvenile delinquency, Magistrate, mental health, National Judicial College in Reno Nevada, Posey Circuit Court, Posey County Board of Commissioners, Posey County video capability for inmates, President Jim Alsop, Senior Judge, small auxiliary courtroom

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