BOSTON LEGAL

okay...so the subplots can be silly, but when they get it right - wow.

hear James Spader plead his case to The Supreme Court:



NP: The Atlantics/"The Crusher"...back on youtube!



PEEVE DE JOUR: so let me tell ya a little story. almost TWO YEARS AGO, Raised By Wolves calls in a panic...her house is being repossessedforcloseduponlost, and she needs a place to part her large paintings...and pronto. nevermind that i was unceremoniously disposed of/that she is a walking disaster area/that she has more loose screws than Home Depot's hardware aisle...Good Guy Chris sez sure, you can park 'em at Dun Giggen.

but then the months drag on, countless dates to move them are broken, an outside hidden key making for 24-hour access never gets used, etc..

i can't in good conscience just toss 'em (which i am repeatedly told to do by people who actually care something about me), my requests for them to be removed are met by her calling me an 'ass' & by my being told that i was being 'dramatic', etc..
















...and here they sit.

and here i sit feeling like a fool.

cock-a-doodle-doo.

anyone want 'em?...'cause Mondays are trash days in Bath.

JOIE DE JOUR: still all aglow from Accra Shepp's reading & last night's dinner w/ Felix and Risa...all new pals thanks to WG = The Best!

ROSATI'S FLAVOR-OF-THE-DAY (May 22nd):

Turtle

cb...where are you?






UPSTATE NEW YORK

MORE MAY 4TH

Published on Monday, May 5, 2008 by The Akron Beacon Journal (Ohio)

Remembering Kent State Shooting Victims
by Jim Mackinnon

Kent, Ohio - The shooting deaths 38 years ago of four Kent State University students by the Ohio National Guard need to be seen as a gift, ‘a lesson’ to the entire United States, a former United Nations weapons inspector said yesterday.0505 09

But if the May 4 commemoration continues to have low attendance (the event was attended by about 400 people) and Americans refuse to read and understand their U.S. Constitution, then those lost lives will have been for nothing, keynote speaker Scott Ritter said.

The retired Marine is a former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq and a critic of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. At one point in his career in the 1990s, he sounded alarms about possible hidden Iraqi weapons. He later said the U.S. government failed to make a case for going to war in Iraq.

Ritter, 46, said in his half-hour talk that he wanted to know why more people didn’t turn out on Sunday afternoon.

“While I applaud those who are here today, I have to ask, why isn’t this hillside covered with the citizens of this country?” Ritter asked. “Where are the students of Kent State? Where are the citizens of this community? Where are the citizens of Ohio? Where is the media?”

The program in which Ritter and others spoke started at noon on the campus commons, near the university’s memorial and markers that show where four students were killed and nine wounded on May 4, 1970, as they protested the Vietnam War and presence of the National Guard on campus. William Schroeder, a native of Lorain, was among those killed.

While the event is based on the shootings 38 years ago, many of the attendees also were protesting the ongoing war in Iraq.

Ritter said whatever their feelings about the Iraq war, people should never denigrate the service provided by the Americans fighting there because they are willing to die for us.

“These are men and women who have taken an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” he said.

“Have we done everything we can to ensure the sacrifice that they are prepared to make is in a cause worthy of the sacrifice?” Ritter said. “And I will tell you, no, we have not.”

The rights of American freedom of speech and assembly were trampled ‘on this very spot,’ shortly after students buried a copy of the U.S. Constitution near where the memorial stands to protest their government’s actions, Ritter said.

Those protesters were defending the Constitution, he said.

U.S. citizens need to read their Constitution, he said. “You cannot defend that which you do not understand.”

The students who were killed on May 4 gave the nation the gift of their lives, he said.

“What are we doing to honor this gift, if we cannot understand that their sacrifice screams out for a responsible citizenry, then we have shamed them, shamed them,” Ritter said. “The gift that those who died on May 4, 1970, gave us, was the gift of self-introspection.”

Ritter said most Americans no longer function as citizens.

“The problem is not the president. The problem is not the Congress. The problem is not the judiciary,” he said. “The problem is we, the people of the United States of America. We aren’t doing our job, therefore they aren’t doing their job.”

For next year’s 39th commemoration, the hills and walls around the campus commons must be filled with people and the entire nation involved, Ritter said.

“Because otherwise, this event has no purpose other than to commemorate the deaths of four Americans,” he said. “This isn’t about the deaths of four Americans. This is about the death of a nation.”

Katherine Pershey, 27, a Kent State graduate who is now pastor of a church in California, returned to the campus for the May 4 events with her husband, Ben, and their 3-month-old daughter, Juliette.

Pershey said she thought Ritter made a good point about the responsibility of U.S. citizens.

“I appreciate hearing that perspective,” she said.

Rebecca Vujanov, 51, said she tries to make it to every May 4 commemoration.

She said Ritter didn’t mince words.

“He cut right to the chase,” she said. “I’m just saddened as a community member that more community members weren’t here.”

The weekend’s events included a silent candlelight march on Saturday and a silent candlelight vigil in the Prentice Hall parking lot. Speakers at Sunday’s program included Emily Kunstler, daughter of Bill Kunstler, a lawyer who represented the families of the May 4 victims, and Dean Kahler and Joe Lewis, former students who were shot and wounded.

© 2008 The Akron Beacon Journal

MAY 4TH/TERRY NORMAN

as Gerry Casale once said...it was the most DEVO of days.

from the Kent list:

From: "Saul Daniels"
Date: Fri May 2, 2008 5:40:18 AM US/Eastern
Subject: KSU / Stater / Burr / WKSU
Hello all,

So here we are, 38 years out from May 4, 1970, and still no resolution. The website http://kent.state.tripod.com/ established in connection with our 2000 gathering continues to collect and post new information.

This week we have an exclusive posting of a new FBI letter proclaiming ..."We consider the matter closed."
Once again the FBI has slammed the door any any further investigation of the events of that awful day.

It came in response to a plea by private citizen and former KSU student Joe Sima who has been researching the actions of FBI informant Terry Norman on campus. Sima provided members of Congress and the FBI with evidence, including outtakes from WKYC video, which raises questions of official culpability in the events of that day. It has been widely known that Norman was armed on May 4 and there is evidence his pistol was fired. So just how involved were undercover officers and possible agent-provocateur Terry Norman?

For those who may have missed the announcement, there will be a reunion for all media graduates at Franklin Hall on May 23 and 24. Franklin Hall is the new high-tech home of the School of Journalism and Mass Communications. It includes a converged newsroom for the Stater, TV-2 and Black Squirrel Radio (WKSU). The old Stater newsroom in Taylor Hall is becoming a May 4 museum.

For details on the reunion, visit www.jmc.kent.edu,contact jmc@kent.edu or call 330-672-8281. The RSVP deadline is May 14.

Best wishes,
Saul Daniels
KSU 1966-1970

PS: Please feel free to forward this message to any former KSU-ers who have new addresses and may have fallen off my email list.