Have court, will cavort. My first-time-visit weblog of the week
is Have Opinion, Will Travel. Naturally, I found it perusing today’s
Blawg Review #27, at Lisa Stone’s Inside Opinions
HOWT‘s anonymous proprietor gives the impression of
being a jurist, but I can’t vouch for that. I can, however, vouch for his
fine-tuned sense of what is fun and interesting (at least to fossils in
my age cohort). There’s also enough meat there for those who insist
on serious content at a weblog. I plan to revisit a discussion on how
public judicial discipline hearings should be, a topic occasionally on
In a post titled What Would Rumpole Say?, HOWT informed
us that UK defense lawyers were about to engage in a
walkout, to protest the failure to receive legal aid fee hikes
since 1997 for criminal trials that last less than 10 days.
Last year, your Editor confessed to enjoying an audio book
involving the beloved and crusty Rumpole, noting he was
an “indigent defense lawyer who takes every case.” Of
course, that was in the context of the Massachusetts
Bar Advocate boycotts — a subject that has given me
more than enough agita for this Century, thank you. Let’s
hope some ethics-minded barrister will take up the cause
over in Britain.
If you haven’t discovered Have Opinion, Will Travel yet,
get over there and give it a look.
Since we mentioned Blawg Review above,
and Lisa Stone, and having opinions, I should probably
say something about the new arrangement making Blawg
Review part of the Law.com Weblog Network. Although
my initial reaction is not extremely negative (like that of
Colin Samuel), I’m not certain that there will be much
effect where it counts — actually resulting in more click-
throughs and new readers at the featured weblogs, and
not just bringing more people to glancce at the weekly
compilation of legal weblog posts. Only time will tell.
On one score though I do have an instant opinion:
That big, ugly Law.com ad box, which is required “soldsign”
of all Network members, can be found in the Sidebar
or Margin of prior members. It may indeed be a bit
less obtrusive at Blawg Review, where it is placed
after the introductory post. Nonetheless, invading the
body of the weblog seems to make it — on principle —
more obnoxious. Sorry, “Ed,” I know you tried. (see
while selling his dumplings
and such…
blossom viewing
morning frost–
yet still a child
sells flowers
“soldSignN”
October 10, 2005
have gavel, will travel
it’s hard to discover Columbus
As you may know, in the USA, “Christopher Columbus Day” is observed in 2005 on October 10th. Despite sailing around the wideworld web all day, I — like Columbus — never quite got to my destination. I had hoped to discover resources for making a highly entertaining-plus-enlightening post about the mixed feelings that are evinced by Cristoforo Columbo across the continent he purportedly “discovered.” Instead, no theme having gelled, I offer you a chest filled with a few gems, a few duds, and a lot less gold than promised — which is about what Columbus brought back for his royal patrons in Spain.
While listening to the noon tv news from Albany’s WNYT, my ears perked up when told the next segment was on the topic, “Life Lessons from Christopher Columbus.” The anchor then interviewed Merci Miglino, whose “life coaching” business is called Matpounders. Merci’s info page says she had “served as Director of Communications for both houses of the New York State Legislature and as chief of staff for a prominent New York City congressman.” The skills needed for (or learned at) those jobs must have honed her ability to find a positive message (cynics call it spin) in almost every situation.
As for Columbus, Merci said he teaches us (with my paraphrasing of her remarks plus editorial comments in brackets) to:
Dream Big – even when others think you’re a kook, aim high,
persist until you find backers [promise to make them all
really rich and maybe acquire further empire, and save a
lot of heathen souls]
Keep your sails moving – go with the flow, even if you don’t
end up at your original destination [and, in Cristoforo’s case,
never admit you failed to get there]
.
Act Like a Monk – spend time alone, reflecting, in clerical
garb [one advantage when charged with various kinds of
malfeasance: it allows you to say you didn’t know what your
crew members were doing to the natives and your brother was
doing cooking the books]
The motto on my family’s coat of arms, appears to be: “When at
a loss for words, talk about the weather:” So, I’m sure my Mother would
be intrigued to know that Columbus, Ohio is having the same dreary/drizzly
as we have here in Schenectady, with a high around 60 degrees.
Actually, my weather gambit turned out to be quite serendipitous. While
checking out the forecast for Columbus, Georgia, (where it is also drizzly, but
20 degrees warmer), I discovered Peter van der Krogt’s comprehensive website
Columbus Monuments, which lists all the places in the world named after
Columbus and all the places with monuments to him (I learned my city of
Schenectady has one — which I managed to ignore for over a decade,
although it was a few yards from my office and I passed thousands of times
walking to Family or Supreme Court. The site also tells you how to spell his
name in just about every language.
original [scroll down]
that he never found the route to Asia. If he has a sense of humor, wherever
he currently resides, Chris might be bemused to see that some nice people
in Kiryu, Japan, sent a lovely park bench and drinking fountain to their sister
city of Columbus, Georgia in the hope “this gift will offer rest and cool
refreshment to all who visit this place, symbolizing the goodwill which exists
between our two textile-oriented cities.”
Pace University New Morning, with an unidentified author, summarizes one
skeptical modern view of Columbus:
“When I was young, we never spent a whole lot of time discussing
the real Christopher Columbus. We all knew we had a day off, loved
the man for it, and would listen to anything the teacher would have to
say about him…even if the teacher was wrong. . . .
“We have a National Holiday for a discoverer, and adventurer,
and a hero who was, in reality, a mass-murderer, a rapist, and
a greedy miser who was out to become rich.”
On the other part of the Columbus-watcher spectrum, I was rather amazed to
learn last year from a true-believer Catholic just how important Columbus was
in God’s plan for the world — since he brought the True religion to a continent
without it, and paved the way for our exceptional nation. The Catholic Encyclopedia
“Columbus was also of a deeply religious nature. Whatever influence
scientific theories and the ambition for fame and wealth may have had
over him, in advocating his enterprise he never failed to insist on the
conversion of the pagan peoples that he would discover as one of the
primary objects of his undertaking.”
surely never took a vow of humility. Click for a picture of the cover page of Columbus’
Book of Privileges, which is discussed here. Columbus drove a hard bargain, and
“Queen Isabel and King Fernando [] agreed to Columbus’s lavish demands if he
succeeded on his first voyage: he would be knighted, appointed Admiral of the
Ocean Sea, made the viceroy of any new lands, and awarded ten percent of any
new wealth.” The Book of Privileges includes all of the many concessions given
by the monarchs to Columbus — a very long list indeed.
A story of Vatican intrigue concerning Columbus, that I had never
heard before came to my attention today. In “What is the real Columbus story?.”
retired Michigan columnist James Donahue explains the position of Italian historian
Ruggero Marino :
“Marino says the late Alessandro Bausani, professor of Islamic
studies at University of Venice, discovered evidence in an early
16th Century Ottoman map that Columbus went to America on a
secret mission for the Pope in 1485. . . .
“He claims the Columbus story as told in contemporary textbooks
is filled with misinformation generated by King Ferdinand and Queen
Isabella of Spain.
“According to Marino, Innocent VIII, an Italian, dispatched Columbus
on his voyage hoping he would find gold to help finance the Crusades.
But the pope’s death in 1492 set the stage for a big change in the
Vatican. The succeeding pope, Alexander VI, a Spaniard, covered
up the story and allowed the Spanish throne to take the credit.”
Donahue’s column fills in the details of the evidence for Marino’s claims.
attention. It sounds great and I plan to locate it at our public Library and “check
it out.” Stavans, who recently wrote Spanglish, says “My purpose is to revisit,
to investigate, to play with the asymmetrical geometries of the admiral’s literary
adventures in the human imagination.” Stavans argues writers have portrayed
Columbus in three ways—as prophet or messiah, as ambitious gold-seeker, and
as a conventional, rather unremarkable man. He examines many poems, novels,
short stories, dramas, and other works
Library Journal said: “Especially fascinating is the chapter on Columbus
as villain, which examines works of Alejo Carpentier, Michael Dorris, and
Louise Erdrich, among others, and on Columbus as symbol,which analyzes
writers from William Carlos Williams to Carlos Fuentes.”
It is no surprise that the question is just as relevant this year. We again
point out that the The Florida Museum of Natural History has an informative
page about Christopher Columbus. And we’ll leave you with our quote from
last October, from the article Columbus: Hero or Heel? (Vista, March 1991) ,
by William F. Keegan:
“For over 500 years there has been only one answer to
the question, who was Columbus? . . . Who do you want him
to be?”update (Oct. 10, 2005, 9 PM):Tonight’s PBS News Hour included a conversation with Charles C. Mann, author of “1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus” (2005). The main Amazon.com review gives a good summary of Mann’s main points, and includes a useful timeline. The book argues that
“[T]he Americas were a far more urban, more populated, and more
technologically advanced region than generally assumed; and the
Indians, rather than living in static harmony with nature, radically
engineered the landscape across the continents . .
“And those who came later and found an emptied landscape
that seemed ripe for the taking, Mann argues convincingly, encountered
not the natural and unchanging state of the native American, but
the evidence of a sudden calamity: the ravages of what was likely the
greatest epidemic in human history, the smallpox and other diseases
introduced inadvertently by Europeans to a population without immunity,
which swept through the Americas faster than the explorers who brought
it, and left behind for their discovery a land that held only a shadow of the
thriving cultures that it had sustained for centuries before.”
p.s. You know, I need to have an Honored Guest or two with Italian surnames.
Maybe I can find one by October 12, the real Columbus Day. Until then,
here’s a guy who might not be a real haiku poet yet, but he’s got the right
last name:
Columbus Day trip
red and yellow crayons
turn into stubs
…………………………………. [Oct. 12, 2004]
perched on
the sitting sumo’s belly —
one large pumpkin
…………………………………… [Oct. 10, 2005]
by dagosan a/k/a David A. Giacalone:
afterthought: Lee Gurga is never just an afterthought in the
haiku community. But, I just realized that “Gurga” certainly sounds
like an Italian name. [It isn’t, but lets make Lee an honorary pisano
anyway.] That vowel hanging on the end of his surname, is a good
enough excuse for me to share a few of Lee’s haiku.
autumn rain–
old man’s furniture
in the pickup
cold drizzle–
a puff of diesel smoke
rises from the freight
blast of wind
flattens the roadside grass–
hitchhiker on her suitcase
………. by
from Fresh Scent: Selected Haiku of Lee Gurga (Brooks Books, 1998)
