Category Archives: The Law — Inside & Outside it

Abortion, Annals of Inequality, Black & White & Other Colors, Conscription/military draft, Corruption, Crime & Punishment, Cross-Generational Issues, Current Affairs, Future, Justice?, LGBTQ & Gender, Minority Rule, Passing the Torch(es), Scams & Frauds, Supreme & Other Courts, The Law — Inside & Outside it, To Save Democracy

My True Confession, from 1968: All Downhill from There

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Here it is:

I didn’t vote for Hubert Humphrey for president in 1968. Humphrey lost to Richard Nixon, by less than one percent. And as Andy Young had warned me, it’s been (almost) all downhill from there.

Not that I voted for Nixon instead. Or for George Wallace, the fiery segregationist Alabama governor, who carried five deep southern states that year.

Instead, I didn’t vote at all.

I’m not proud of it; but my feelings and regrets are not the point here. Continue reading My True Confession, from 1968: All Downhill from There →

Activism, Antiwar activism, Conscription/military draft, History, Israel, Israel/Hamas War, Jews & Judaism, Karma, Military Matters, Other War Notes, Palestine, Religious Issues & Conflicts, Remember . . ., Resistance, Signs of the Times, Southeast Asia, The Law — Inside & Outside it, The Military Industrial Complex, Vietnam

Flashbacks! I’m Having 1967 Anti-Draft Flashbacks! From Vietnam to Jerusalem

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Sheesh! Did somebody slip one (or two) of those “new” cure-all psychedelic pills into my low-sodium tomato juice??

Must have, because I’m having wild and weird hallucinations from —I don’t know— 1967?  They’re full of long-haired young men shouting slogans against the draft.

I can tell they’re hallucinations because other than the hair, the protesters are dressed all alike in the most un-hip getup ever:  not a tie-dye in sight, nary a scrap of paisley, and no roaches anywhere. Maybe it’s a back alley scene from the Haight-Ashbury?

Also, the slogans seem to be aimed at overthrowing the government, but they’re all in some exotic local slang that, from the accents, sounds kind of —  kind of, like, maybe, Hebrew?

I know I’m delirious because I heard one of the longhairs talking English to some TV guy, and he  insisted they’re gonna make the revolution so they can all be free to — what?? Study Tarot? “Say what?” I asked. “Dude, like, the Age of Aquarius is so over.” He just grunted and flipped me off.

I must really be having a bum trip, I figured . . . .

Continue reading Flashbacks! I’m Having 1967 Anti-Draft Flashbacks! From Vietnam to Jerusalem →

Conscription/military draft, Fire This Time, Gaza, Israel, Israel/Hamas War, Jews & Judaism, Religious Issues & Conflicts, Resistance, The Law — Inside & Outside it, War & Peace

Could Drafting Ultra-OrthodoxYouth Bring Down Israel’s Government?

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It’s a venerable Jewish joke: a Jew falls off a ship, in mid-ocean, and swims to an uninhabited island. Years later, his SOS signal is spotted. When rescuers arrive, they find he has managed to construct three small buildings from flotsam and jetsam: a small cabin, and two identical synagogues.

“Why two?” He was asked. The answer is immediate:

This one,” he points to the right “is where I go to pray each Shabbos.”

”And the other?”

He snorts. “Why do you ask? That’s the one I wouldn’t be caught dead in.”

Intra-communal controversy and sectarianism are persistent features of Jewish populations, and in this respect, the state of Israel is no exception. And the divide between a strongly Jewish-identified but non-observant majority and a rapidly growing ultra-orthodox minority, known as haredim, is a continuing source of tension.
 Continue reading Could Drafting Ultra-OrthodoxYouth Bring Down Israel’s Government? →

Accountability, Arts-Comics, Arts: Writing, Behind Bars, Black & White & Other Colors, Crime & Punishment, Jail & Incarceration, Justice?, Prison, Racism, The Law — Inside & Outside it, Women & Girls

A Light For Life On Death Row? A Unique Story in Graphics

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The Marshall Project: In 2022, I [Maurice Chammah, Staff Writer at The Marshall Project ] spent several weeks shadowing investigator Sara Baldwin as she tried to save a man from execution. Bernard Belcher had killed a young woman named Jennifer Embry; despite deep remorse for his actions, he couldn’t explain why he did it.

Baldwin’s goal was to unearth his life story, looking for material that would persuade a jury to choose mercy. Her job title is “mitigation specialist,” but I started calling her a “mercy worker,” seeing in her profession a set of lessons for how to build a less punitive country. Continue reading A Light For Life On Death Row? A Unique Story in Graphics →

45, Abortion, Accountability?, Books & Book Reviews, Catholics & Catholicism, Civil War, Colleges & Education, Cross-Generational Issues, Culture wars, Current Affairs, Death & Dying, Ecumenical & Interfaith, Fire This Time, Justice?, Kids, Religious Issues & Conflicts, Schools/Education, Sedition Watch, Signs of the Times, The Law — Inside & Outside it, Think piece, To Save Democracy, Women & Girls

Early Abortion & The Priest With Two Stethoscopes

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Kansas & Wyoming, 1958-1960

St. Josephs Military Academy, Hays Kansas, late 1950s.

In those old days of the  (pre-Vatican Two) Catholic Church, they used to say of people like me that we had “lost our faith.”

In my case, it wasn’t quite true. That year, 1958,  as I turned sixteen,I didn’t lose my faith.  Instead, I discovered I just didn’t have any.

I was a junior at a Catholic boarding school, St. Joseph’s  Military Academy, in western Kansas. How I got there (my family was then on an Air Force  base in Puerto Rico), and what led me to realize my faithlessness are stories told in another place (for the curious, details are in the memoir, Meetings).

Continue reading Early Abortion & The Priest With Two Stethoscopes →