Bizarre, Criminal law, Society

“He Chose His Poison”: Grandma Implicates Grandson As Bomb Thrower In Portland Attack

That is the review that Fox said her grandson later asked her to delete. That would seem an effort to destroy possibly incriminating evidence. It turned out that the grandmother was already going public with her identification.

Posting as “@TRUMPSGIRL2020,” Fox tweeted in response to the photo from protest: “This is my only grandson, I love him to death, and didn’t know he was going to do such a bad thing, I had been posting several things about the antifa and BLM, he knows I am against those riots bigtime … he chose his poison.”

In the meantime, Agard-Berryhill (who turned himself in) seemed to admit that he threw the device and also set a record for the use of the word “allegedly”: “The device I’ve been accused of allegedly throwing was allegedly given to me by an unknown protestor with full face coverings. I was allegedly told that it was a strobe firework that wouldn’t damage the building or harm anyone around it. Law enforcement has not contacted me for any alleged crime as of right now.” He told police that he was told to throw had “yellow cardboard packaging with blue stripes, was the size of a small ‘V8’ can, and had a green fuse.”

That is a familiar defense.  Shader reportedly blamed three African Americans with giving her the Molotov cocktail that she used to torch a police vehicle in New York.

Fox’s rave review of the vest in prominently quoted in the charging documents. She said that her grandson said that he was engaged in peaceful protests. He was shown protecting a naked woman during the protests.

Agard-Berryhill is not only looking at a federal charge of arson but he was on probation for a felony conviction when he was a minor after spending the past two years at Rogue Valley Youth Correctional Facility in southern Oregon.

 

 

Gabriel Sebastian Agard-Berryhill
Gabriel Sebastian Agard-Berryhill Facebook (2)

 

269 thoughts on ““He Chose His Poison”: Grandma Implicates Grandson As Bomb Thrower In Portland Attack”

      2. DJ Bob Sinclair’s cover from 2012. yes, this was before the Wuhan virus & COVID ruined the whole world for a time

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  3. AH oh, intentional triggering (for stimulation)…is that permissible today? hmm

  4. Agard is a Finnish name and the kid has the Finnish look. The Finns are a high quality people. Hence, it seems he wastes his talents. Sad. How do we reclaim the miseducated youth?

    1. Powerline blog has a post on umbrella man and the source of the original allegation. Turns out it is likely b.s., more Leftist fraud. The demand for White Supremacists exceeds the supply.

    2. Bug if you want some homework get the primary source, the probable cause affidavit. I
      the cnn article references it but of course they dont show it, I would love to see it.

      here’s my headline

      PROBABLY CAUSE AFFIDAVITS OFTEN FILLED WITH LIES; “ANONYMOUS SOURCES” CAN BE POLICE MAKING UP “EVIDENCE” SURREPTITIOUSLY
      ARE POLICE SETTING UP A BIKER BECAUSE THE MAYOR TOLD THEM TO DO SO?

      “Christensen said in the warrant that police recently received a tip regarding the identity of “Umbrella Man.”
      The tipster told the investigator that the man “wanted to sow discord and racial unrest by breaking out the windows and writing what he did on the double red doors.”
      The warrant says “Umbrella Man” was present during “an incident in Stillwater Minnesota where a Muslim woman was racially harassed by a group of motorcycle club members wearing Aryan Cowboy leather vests.””

      so some group of outlaw bikers was irritating the city officials a month before, and one of them was tall

      then, when nobody knew who “umbrella man” was, people were saying that they had positively ID’d him as … a city police officer.

      Of course, the police stridently deny that

      Mayor “:Frey” (lol, a very ‘aryan” name, that, norse god of war) says “white supremacists” are actually in the streets causing trouble, even though we saw thousands of blacks dancing in the flames and looting stores; and typical black clad skinny white ANTIFA geeks doing the usual. but no, someone had an idea…. BLAME IT ON THOSE OUTLAW BIKER GUYS!

      and so, …… an “anonymous tip” was “called in” to the police. It’s that biker guy!

      Is that proof?

      Only to a journalist.

      Let’s see how that eventually stands up in court. When the biker gets a lawyer, he will slice and dice this like a boiled egg.

      I will give you a little “pro tip” now. Those “tipster” lines? How do they work?

      a) police need probable cause. often, they don’t have it
      b) the mayor wants a suspect
      c) police “brainstorm” the problem and come up with “one of the usual suspects”
      d) a police officer gets out his burner phone– you know what that is right? then…..
      THE POLICEMAN SURREPTITIOUSLY CALLS IN THE SOCALLED ANONYMOUS TIP
      since the tipline is “anonymous” nobody can prove… it was the cops calling in pretending to be mere citizen witnesses
      e) then they put that bogus tip n the warrant.

      see, the crazy things one can learn when you are a lawyer, are many. i have not seen a lot of pc affidavits but i have seen a few and a few with big fat whopper lies in them.

      Now, is that what happened? I dont know. I dont know umbrella man nor the biker in question. Nor do i know any Minneapolis cops!
      But I know it could have happened. And that is about as much as an “anonymous tip” is worth, little more than nothing.

      Time will tell, but, if I am right that there will be no conviction of the supposed outlaw biker perp in the end, who will apologize?

      Nobody, because, nobody will remember, except me, and nobody would apologize even if they do. That’s how the Mass media and papers work in this country!

      Print a lie, most people will not see it, fewer will remember, and hardly anybody will sue.
      Might as well all be “national enquirer” level papers because few of them are much more.

      1. Appreciate hearing of your experiences from the legal realm, Kurtz. And yes, I’m familiar with burners and some of the things they’re good for. Lol. Like hearing them laid out like you’ve done here though!

        Can’t say I’m on the same page re anonymous tips, having done a bit of freelancing for various publications in my day. Not that anonymous tips are discouraged, sometimes there’s no other way to write a story. Always in any reputable news source getting a real identity attached to a tip is hugely encouraged. And *never* is just one anonymous tip considered enough to go to press. If anonymous tips are the only source, a bunch of them have to be stabled, in agreement, and ready to go. Doing business in any other way is a sure ticket to getting constantly sued and just plain not fair to the personalities involved.

        Where anonymous tips are abused is in writing that is basically op ed that’s masquerading as being straight journalism…, you know, the Breitbart’s of the world. Always, when weeding through the prose the tell tale signs are there when the op ed (structured as straight reporting) veers into the fictional,. Certain words are drawn on to strongly allude but not back up the assertion factually. These articles are skillfully constructed, it’s a whole sub branch of copywriting unto itself and it thrives on the legions of people who can’t distinguish between straight reporting and op ed. Not at all unusual to see people mistakenly posting these op eds as being supposedly factual information on this blog as a matter of fact. Hell, Turley does it in his posts all the tjme.

        It goes to something I feel really strongly about…, I think public school education has to expand toward finding a way to teach, in high school curriculum, the ability to recognize rhetoric from neutral reporting. It plagues this nation.

    1. And yet people pick on her mother rather than consider what the girl is doing. Self-awareness is MIA.

      1. i like the daughter’s videos…, and think people should pick on the mom even though I have a strong suspicion Kellyanne is the inside resistance.

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  11. He allegedly needs to be going to jail now….so it will no longer be alleged.

    ”
    Alleged” arson is harder to prove than he thinks. LOL

    1. Bullright- allegedly he was captured on video both throwing the bomb and running away. Allegedly, I have seen the video.

  12. Just saw a Biden add using Ronald Reagan in it. Talk about irony.

    1. Independent Bob – it is a perfect ad for Biden. Biden has dementia, Reagan died from dementia.

      1. My grandfather is a lifelong republican and This time he’s voting democrat. He would have never done this if he was alive.

        1. Independent Bob – California has 112% of eligible registered voters. So, who are going to get those extra 12% of ballots?

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      1. Years ago I bought a CD with extraordinary music and found I liked much of it, this one in particular. Another I will try to find, Oppenheimer, begins with his famous comments on the atomic bomb and slides into a mix of Western choral music and what I think is a Hindu religious chant, different but still appealing to me. I will look for it.

          1. It was a quote from the Bhag. Gita. He was quite involved with ancient Hindu literature, involved to the extent that other physicists thought it was hurting his research. The quote was apt.

            Similarities between the Hindu gods and those of Greece, Rome and the Norse apparently exist because they derive from the same source, the Indo-European warriors who spread from the Eurasian Steppes into Europe and India taking their language and gods with them. Sanscrit and Hindi are Indo-European as are almost all western languages except Basque and the Uralic language group. Roughly speaking, of course.

            1. The idea of the Indo-European expansion was resisted for many years. The thought was that the language spread by culture rather than conquest. However genetics shows it was conquest. The male haplogroups R1a and Rib almost totally replaced existing male lines, meaning they killed the men and took the women. Pretty much all of Europe is R1b and the east is heavily R1a. Wipe out.

            2. Yes Young the linguistic and cultural connections and likely ancient blood as well.

              I was first so informed as many were by Edith Hamilton’s great book, “Mythology”

              Notice that neither I nor you, used the Sanskrit word, “Aryan” which means noble. We did not use that word Aryan. Because it is a no no.

              I like the PIE lexicon or encyclopedia for words, it’s very fun reading if you like words

              http://pielexicon.hum.helsinki.fi/

              1. The Iranians will use Aryan. Iranian is a corruption of Aryan and Farsi is also an Indo-European language. They are very aware of their different origins and look down on Arabs. I think that is one of the reasons Arabs are beginning to think Jews and Americans aren’t so bad after all.

                Thanks for the link. In his book Anthony explains how ancient languages can be revived. Very interesting discussion.

                    1. Young….Oh my lord you were a brave kid at the riot! Fearless.

                      I’ll bet the railroad guys got a kick out of you, and yes, probably some envy there, too!

                    2. I don’t think I was brave. Just young, very excited and overconfident. From the first two riots I had a sense of the crowds and I relied on that. Someone claimed to have seen me standing [first riot] in the middle of the rioters taking notes. I guess that sounded like something I would do, but I wasn’t taking written notes, however, I was observing carefully and trying to remember how it was playing out. Those observations were reinforced in the second riot. Then I decided to try the other side and asked to sign up with the police. It really seems like there are moments when those rioting become a single mind and you have to keep that mind in your awareness. I have read that the brainwaves of musicians synchronize when they are playing. Maybe it is true. But something similar can happen with mobs. I felt the real pull of it, almost tidal, when I joined in the clapping and chanting and I stopped and let go because I didn’t want to do something stupid and I could see that possibility if I joined the orchestra as it were. I watched one guy caught in the mood charge the police line with a garbage can over his head, intending to throw it. Very properly he was beaten down and dragged away. I thought I didn’t want to do that so minimized my mind meld with the mob mind. Sounds like superstitious nonsense and probably it is, but that is how it felt.

                      I don’t think I would try the same with the savages that are destroying cities now.

            3. They say Euskara, the Basque tongue was spoken in the garden of Eden. Perhaps it was one of those pre-indo-european languages spoken in the northern mediterranean going back into the mist of prehistory. Like Etruscan. Minoans & Myceneans. Before the IE patriarchy and militant social organization of the Hellenes and the Latium came and put them to the sword and took their stuff,

              1. Basque could be a remnant language of the First Farmers of Europe who migrated from Anatolia or, more fascinating, I suppose it could be a remnant of the hunter/gather population who were there before the arrival of the Anatolian farmers who were there before we were, Indo-Europeans. Mommsen says in his history of Rome that Etruscans came from Anatolia and he makes a persuasive argument for it long before genetics proved he was right. I don’t know if their Anatolian origins were first farmer or later migrations. I wonder if Basque and Estruscan languages might be related?

                I think Eden was likely Eridu, the holy city that preceded Uruk, the first real city so that language would likely be Sumerian.

                1. Hey, This is what Josephus had to say about Nimrod, the supposed king of Uruk. Tell me, is diversity really our greatest strength?

                  “Now it was Nimrod who excited them to such an affront and contempt of God. He was the grandson of Ham, the son of Noah, a bold man, and of great strength of hand. He persuaded them not to ascribe it to God, as if it were through his means they were happy, but to believe that it was their own courage which procured that happiness. He also gradually changed the government into tyranny, seeing no other way of turning men from the fear of God, but to bring them into a constant dependence on his power. He also said he would be revenged on God, if he should have a mind to drown the world again; for that he would build a tower too high for the waters to reach. And that he would avenge himself on God for destroying their forefathers. Now the multitude were very ready to follow the determination of Nimrod, and to esteem it a piece of cowardice to submit to God; and they built a tower, neither sparing any pains, nor being in any degree negligent about the work: and, by reason of the multitude of hands employed in it, it grew very high, sooner than any one could expect; but the thickness of it was so great, and it was so strongly built, that thereby its great height seemed, upon the view, to be less than it really was. It was built of burnt brick, cemented together with mortar, made of bitumen, that it might not be liable to admit water. When God saw that they acted so madly, he did not resolve to destroy them utterly, since they were not grown wiser by the destruction of the former sinners; but he caused a tumult among them, by producing in them diverse languages, and causing that, through the multitude of those languages, they should not be able to understand one another. The place wherein they built the tower is now called Babylon, because of the confusion of that language which they readily understood “before; for the Hebrews mean by the word Babel, confusion …

                  1. The diversity question is good. I think with the imports from the Muslim world and Africa it is a mistake. Think of Hengest and Horsa and how that turned out. Immigrants should share the values that made the country or be ready to adopt them. You can see in Europe how the lack of assimilation is working. Churches are being desecrated or burned almost every week in France. The church of England has ordered clerics to hide their collars while walking in parts of the cities.

                    On the other hand, diversity worked well with the Romans until it didn’t. The population of Rome is genetically more homogeneous now than it was in ancient times. The Roman legions in Britannia were manned by men from Holland and as far away as Syria. But they became Roman in mind and that made the difference. Kings like long-haired Clovis learned to become Roman just enough to take over.

                    1. Yeah, how often have we all wondered how great it would be if blacks played and listened to music like Paul Whiteman’s or Lawrence Welk’s. And don;t get me started on how horribly they and the Italians have messed up our boiled meat and potato diet.

                    2. Well the Anglo-Saxons failed to learn about Hengst and Horsa, certainly most Americans have never heard of them, perhaps today neither the English; & how their own ancestors took the Island of Britain from the Britons by guile and force. And they forgot how they kept it against the Vikings by faith and force.

                      and how Anglo Saxon cousins here, as “migrants,” took an entire continent from the natives here, by whatever means.

                      and they didn’t listen to MP Enoch Powell in 1968

                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7_he6pYxPI

                      the best thing that kids can learn today from all this anti-western, multicultural history is this: you keep your sovereignty in the long run, by building social cohesion, resources, and sufficiently organized force, or you simply will not keep it at all.

                      of course one could learn that just from the Old Testament, just as well, but nobody here much studies that now either.

                      only in the “West” including American and Western Europe, have peoples who are so supposedly well educated, become so ignorant of the most obvious lessons, of history

              2. Mr Kurtz…I swear you and Young know all of this fantastic history…..I’m envious. Obviously I took too many music courses….. 🙂

                1. No you didn’t. Music is touching the gods. Probably for Kurtz and also for also for me it is near perpetual independent reading of things that seem interesting. Academically I graduated, barely, with the lowest GPA in my class and flunked out of, and was banished from, a community college three semesters in a row. When I got a truly miserable job in the smelter I decided I had to go back and treat formal courses more seriously.

                  1. Young – I got kicked out of 3 colleges and universities and had many crappy jobs before I got my act together.

                    2. Young – however, when I came back I had a nasty demand for my professors. If they assigned something for me to read, they had to read it, too. And I read it and asked in-depth questions about the reading.

                    5. Paul and Young– I feel humbled. I and some classmates were kicked out of college our freshman year for inciting to riot in downtown Rome Georgia. After spending the night in jail, we were arraigned and the President of the school made a deal that if I and the others who were arrested would leave the school they would ask that the charges be dropped. The judge agreed with the further stipulation that we never return to Rome. We agreed. And no, it was not an anti-war riot. A bunch of us were downtown witnessed a wreck. We split up with half on one side of the street and the other half on the other side. I got in the middle of the street and led chants, first one side yelling “Truck’s Fault, Truck’s Fault” and then the other side yelling “Cadillac’s Fault, Cadillac’s Fault.”

                    6. honestlawyer – ah, the good ol’ days. I think that was worth getting kicked out of college for. When I was a Creighton, they told us that as long as the school’s name did not get in the paper, we were okay with them. So, we never carried student ID unless we were doing something legal.

                      Just as a fun story. When I was a senior in h.s., one of my teachers showed film from the HUAC Communist Student Hearings. Because it was held in SF, and all the seats were taken, most students could not get in. So, they locked the doors to the building. The students were pounding on the doors, yelling “Open the doors! What are you afraid of! Open the doors! What are you afraid of!”

                      So, two days later, on a beautiful spring day in Montana. One of those days when you can smell the grass starting to grow. About half the student body is outside the front doors of the school about 15 before they let us in after lunch (we went home for lunch, uphill both ways, barefoot, over broken glass) about 5 of us start chanting “Open the doors! What are you afraid of!” Within 5 minutes the entire front of the building was chanting it. Now, why anyone wanted inside is beyond me. 😉 We keep it up until they actually opened the doors on time and the students went rushing in. It was my first taste of mob psycholoogy/

                    8. Young – I did get kicked out of Carrol College because I went to Butte.

                    9. Paul C……..when you say “bridge” do you mean the card game?
                      I had an aunt who told me that I could not possibly be thought of as a respectable Southern wife of an attorney and NOT play bridge! It was unheard of!!! LOL
                      I never learned the game…..who wants to be respectable 🙂

                    10. Cindy Bragg – yes, bridge the card game. My mother was an excellent player, however she never taught me, although we played a lot of card games. I learned in college. It can get highly competitive and you can lose or win a lot of money playing it.

                    11. Honest– That sounds like fun. Kick the dust of the town from your heels . Who needs Rome, Georgia? I went to three similar riots but didn’t get caught though I did get tear gassed. The third time I decided I wanted to be in the riot but didn’t want to risk arrest so I went to the police station a few days in advance to see if they were hiring anyone temporarily to help with the coming riot. They asked I had any experience with riots and I said yes, I was a rioter for the last two riots. Good enough. They signed me up and gave me a badge.

                      The riots were companions to hydroplane races on Lake Coeur d’Alene.

                      Later Newsweek or Time said they were race riots. Well, kind of.

                    12. Paul– ” I did get kicked out of Carrol College because I went to Butte.:

                      You got kicked out for going to a cat house? They were pretty discreet unless you met someone on the stairs.

                    13. Young – it is a long story involving other people who are still alive. No cat houses were involved. I did not even know they existed in Butte. 🙂

                    16. Cindy Bragg – it unnerved the faculty and staff for the first period in the afternoon. 😉

                  2. Young…..Thank you. You’re kind. That’s such a nice sentiment about music. Except for music classes, I was a C average student..
                    But when I turned 40, I decided I wanted to be an intellect, LOL, so I decided to take a philosophy course at a Catholic university 2 blocks from our house.. I decided to be a serious student and so I made an A in the course! I couldn’t believe it..and the professor was a Yankee, too! LOL 🙂
                    He was head of the dept, and was my age. He had trained to be a priest, but changed to Philosophy. The university was founded in 19th c by Holy Cross brothers from Notre Dame. The prof has remained a close friend of ours. He gave me an A!! 🙂

                    1. Cindy Bragg – I started teaching in the community college system and the first class I taught had a 75 y/o woman in who was working on her BA. I liked having “returning students” which is what I was, because they brought real life experience to the classroom.

                    2. Cindy,

                      All you needed for a string of As was subjects that interested you and a teacher who shared your enthusiasm.

                      Well, desperation to survive helps sometimes, too.

                  3. after I was removed from the public integrated primary school that taught me most of what i needed to know about “race relations” the hard way, I was put into the finest schools that flyover has to offer. I had excellent grades the whole stretch until i graduated law school.

                    Much of what i learned about history I read on my own, over a lifetime. but my university classes including the ones dripping with Marxist ideology, were instructive for me in ways that I never anticipated possible at the time. The best class i had in history was seventh grade world history where i learned most of what i needed to know for Western history for the rest of my life and it was one of the few that focused on Continental history and not English speaking history. There is a whole other world and way of thinking on the European Continent which has many lessons that we could put to use right now if we understood them.

                    In college I had three that were fantastic about Asian history, culture, and literature with the same professor. I learned things from her that I never could have been taught by an American. Not because we can’t understand them, but because we are caught in an ideological matrix that blinds us to the deep significance of group culture, identity, and conflict. An Asian professor can get away with telling truths that would get a white professor in deep trouble. Lucky for me then I had this lady. Anyhow it revealed for me one good value of learning about the “Other:” you will always come away better understating yourself.

                    In college I also had a lot of philosophy. Philosophy is impossible to understand without reference to the historical and social milieu from which it emerges.

                    law school is all just a form of history, in its own way

                    post law school, i had mentors that taught me things about history i never understood before. Some of them are well known, perhaps infamous would be the word for it, dissenters if you will, very well informed and educated dissenters perhaps, and I won’t name them.

                    the most important part of departure which I take from traditional American historical notions, is the premise that cultural values are all universal.

                    Well, some of them are of course, like hard work for example, and a few other things. but not all things. some cultural values are particular. most of all nationalism is the ultimate particular value. but among the most not-universal values, are those related to government and politics. this is very contrary to what we are taught. but I reject the notion that there is one set of universal human values or one particular governmental form which is vastly superior to all others. In this I am not a liberal. and i have been told that I am very un-American, too, at least from those who believe this is a “creedal nation.” If it is then perhaps I am not a part of it. Or perhaps there are two nations– the creedal nation, that is a superficial narrative we all chirp at each other for politeness’ sake– and then there are real nations simmering under the surface, like a boiling pot with a lid barely containing it.

                    I sometimes feel like i am wasting my time here. but then i remember, my mentors wasted their time on me. so as a favor to them I will keep on at it.

                    1. Mr Kurtz……. I’m glad you keep on at it.
                      BTW… I do not know what “high yeller” is! Can you say in mixed company?

                    1. Thanks! The rioting experience was handy. When the first wave came at us I could tell they were mostly people fleeing a city sponsored dance that the police attacked so I had them put the temporary fence they trampled back up and pointed to a street where they could escape to home. The second wave was a bit more surly but previous experience helped handle them as well. When the wave passed over me and I was in their midst I could see guys grabbing rocks to throw at police. I pulled my badge off and ran with the mob until I could get in front of them, turn, put my badge back on and confront them. I knew I needed to deal with the mob as a whole. As individuals I didn’t have a chance. It worked out. I wondered why nobody threw rocks at me but next day [the riot was at night] I discovered the ground was littered with rocks in the area where I had been standing. Too excited to notice, I guess. None hit me.

                      That honest approach worked riding freight trains too. I walked to the switch shack and told the guys I wanted to catch a freight to Yuma. Could they tell me when the next one was leaving and what track it was on. In that instance–there were several–I was tired so I asked if I could sleep behind their shack and have them wake me when it was time to go. They were always nice about it. Often I heard them say they wished they had done the same thing when they were my age.

              3. Minoans were different but I am reasonably sure the Myceneans were Greek. I visited Mycenae one year and got to stand in what was left of the megaron where Agammenon likely held feasts for other kings and plotted the war on Troy. Wonderful place to visit. Then came the collapse of the Bronze Age world and the long crawl back to the Classical age.

                1. Young….You’re so right about liking the courses. The only A ‘s I made in high school, other than music….were in history…i LOVED history….especially with the teacher I had. He was a stooped-over, crusty old man with thick glasses, untamed thick white hair, and a permanent frown on his face. He would walk into the classroom, sit at a desk with nothing on it, lean back, put his feet on the desk. gaze out the window and just start talking…No books, no notes, nothing. He told stories…. I wrote down almost every thing he said., because his stories were wonderful. For our exams, he would walk into the room and on the chalkboard write: Tell me everything you know about (blank) …whatever the subject was. Then he would leave and return in an hour. What a great way to teach teenagers, IMO.

                  1. He sounds like a superb history teacher. Lucky you got him. History is stories and schools forget that.

                    I had one teacher for a couple of days that was like that, a young man and student teacher. He ignored the text, which was awful, and began, enthusiastically, telling us about the Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, a wonderful, racy story. Then he told about the disputes, egos and errors that led to the Charge of the Light Brigade. Again fascinating. Those two talks were the only history I took away from my years in high school. Nothing else. I thought I hated history but at home I was reading a book on Octavian and his rise to become Augustus. Took me awhile to realize that was history and what was in school was mostly cardboard.

                2. Young– I think I’ve had an interesting life but then I keep reading these little gems you casually drop on this blog. Riots and trains and mines and law on top of that, just to mention a few. I will join the line to buy your book when it comes out.

                  As I grow older, I realize that interesting experiences in life create memories which really are gifts we give to ourselves to store up for the later years. At any time we can reach in the closet and pull out any memory we want. It’s like time travel which can even let us feel the same emotions– even smell the same smells– as if we were back then. Tonight when I recalled the story of the bar owner and our “girls” I smiled all over again. I suspect you do as well.

                  1. Honest–
                    I do experience the sounds and smells again. I took a break from the book to chat here for a moment. Oddly it helps to hear your stories and thoughts. I usually have a glass of wine to ease back to the memories. I am not going to carry the book into undergraduate or law school or anything after that though I have been asked to. I’ve been badgered just to write this part for years. Nice that you were able to submerge into your memories of the bar owner and the girls again. I don’t know if you met the working girls, not in court but in their usual setting, but probably every boy in my high school had the experience. We had seven cat houses in the valley. They were safe, pleasant, clean and rather fast. A timer was set after you paid. They were nice people.

                    Funny thing that happened in the time after the book will end so isn’t in it was when two of my friends, both pilots, went to the Oasis Rooms and had a special favor. Len [not real name] was going to have a vasectomy the next day and he was willing to pay the girls to remove his hair down there. They were a little puzzled but then one said, “We can try something we girls use.” and Len went back. He seemed back there a long time and Zach, my other friend, was getting concerned. Then one of the girls popped her head in and said something like we almost have it under control now and he will be out soon. What the? Turned out that they had smeared gobs of Nair on his groin and it apparently hurt. They got him into water fast but I guess it took awhile to ease the pain. Len was killed a few years later at an airshow when he rolled his biplane close to the runway and the engine missed and he couldn’t get upright. I had represented him once in an administrative hearing when the FAA wanted to ding his license. To my regret I didn’t win though he worried for me, thought I was getting too aggressive with the judge and was going to get in trouble.. Sweet of him. But it was good practice for when they came for my license.

                    Too much wine and too much writing. Thanks for your input. I truly appreciate it and it helps me remember.

                    Footnote– The Oasis Rooms is a museum now. Here’s their website: https://zjdarrah.wixsite.com/oasisbordello

                    They didn’t have that stupid sign in the day. Just a sign that said Oasis Rooms.

          1. It is and it is haunting. Sometimes I would use it in the background in class when I began talking about the Holocaust and putting up slides from the camps. “Now I am become death, destroyer of worlds” fits a lecture on mass murder. Some students protested. Too triggering and upsetting. I said I meant to trigger and upset you.

              1. Not public school. For years I taught a brief course on law to medical students. The Holocaust part dealt with the involvement of doctors in the murders. Several were hanged. Often the SS officer on the selection ramp in Auschwitz was a doctor. The US has been culpable in criminal human experimentation as well. Read The Plutonium Files about Americans being given radioactive materials without their knowledge or consent. Pregnant women were given them on some occasions and it was put in the cereal of children in an orphanage on another. It was a Cold War thing. They needed research on how to manage radiation cases if we were bombed, so we poisoned some of our own people. That was a “don’t do this” part of my lecture. My home had radioactive material from the Hanford Atomic works drift on it. It was released secretly at night. We in that region are known as Downwinders because we were down wind of the secret release of a plume of radioactivity. No ill effects so far as I know however.

                1. Young…Oh wow…..fascinating. I mean it. And I just read about Hanford ….never knew that was part of Manhattan Project! And in Washington state.
                  I’m learning alot!

                  1. The U-235 for the Hiroshima bomb was refined from nature in Tennessee. Plutonium used in the Fat Man bomb on Nagasaki had to be created in the reactors at Hanford because Plutonium did not exist naturally. Rhodes’ The Making of the Atomic Bomb is a great history of the idea from Leo Szilard–who actually held the patents to the bomb–up through its creation and use.

                    The funny thing was that in the lead smelter the word was that if we drank milk it could help get lead from our systems (we all got it) but we didn’t know that our milk was contaminated with radioactivity–it was a secret. Joke on us, I guess.

                    1. The thing was, we knew about the lead and accepted and tried to manage the risk. We did not give informed consent to being irradiated by the government.

                    2. Young…. well, glad that so far, no symptoms?! What the hell was the Gov’t thinking?!

                      My father was in the Army Air Corps in the South Pacific during ww2. He spent most of the time in the Philippines. He said on about August 5 of 1945, there was a definite buzz going around that something really big was about to happen.. I think he was a Staff Sgt, They all had no idea what it was until the next day.
                      Honest was in the Peace Corps in the Philippines 24 years later…..At that time you could still find a terrified Japanese soldier or two hiding and living in the jungle.

                    3. I am glad we dropped both atomic bombs and many Japanese were as well. After Okinawa and Saipan it was clear that the death toll from an invasion would be horrific on both sides. I knew several people who were in the Marines then, two who were on Iwo Jima, and there is no doubt the bomb saved lives. The death toll in Hiroshima was, I think, lower than the fire bombing of Tokyo and about the same the Japanese did to civilians in Nanking by beheading contests, bayonet, rape chairs and burying alive. They wanted war with the gloves off and they mostly got it.

                      Even after the two bombs were dropped a faction in the military tried to capture the emperor and stop the surrender.

                    4. William Craig has a good book, The Fall of Japan, that covers the bombing and the many internal struggles in Japan before they could surrender.

                2. Young…… my father said they realized it was necessary to drop both bombs……and said even after all of that it wasn’t definite that they would surrender, like you said.

                3. Young– you teaching a course to medical students reminded me of an experience I had. Some years back I spent a lot of time prosecuting nursing homes for abuse and neglect. Because of the medical aspects of nursing homes, the state medical association asked me to speak at one of their gatherings. I began my presentation by saying that “two hundred years ago when my colleagues were writing a constitution, yours were drilling holes in people’s heads for headaches.” For some reason, I was never invited back.

                  2. Funny, but I think you borrowed that though I can’t remember from whom. Perhaps you were the original. But it is a great thing to say, though it is never really appreciated.

                    I should already have known, that legal thinking really is different. History may help but philosophy not so much

                    Given your work with nursing homes I am sure you had moments of astonishment when you thought, “how in hell could you not see that you shouldn’t do that. It’s obvious!” It is obvious to us but not so much to others in a different professional field. I tried to make it obvious to medical students with real life and shocking examples– easier to remember that way.

                    Res ipsa loquitur cases are fun to teach because they are grotesque and funny and memorable.

                    I had one student tell me that in a medical situation the patient has his own obligation to hire an expert on difficult issues. I said, but he has hired an expert–you. You are the patient ‘s expert. You have a fiduciary duty to your patient to act in his best interests. You aren’t an aluminum siding salesman dealing at arm’s length.

                    Fun course to teach.

                    1. Young– The nursing home experience was back in the old days when it truly was the wild west. Shortly after we got organized, we raided a facility in a bad part of Dallas, arrested the administrator and temporarily took over the operation. The things we saw and learned were truly awful. When I told the nursing home’s staff that the administrator had been arrested, they applauded. Across the street was a combination taxi stand, liquor store and house of ill repute. In the midst of this horror, the owner of this store made us smile. On our second day we received a case of soft drinks from him that said for our “girls” (the nurses) not to worry. They would be protected. And they were.

                    2. honestlawyer – they might have had part-time jobs at the taxi stand. 😉

                    3. Honest– That’s a good story. Glad it worked out and that the folks across the street kept an eye out. Sometimes the most decent people show up in places unexpected.

                      I can’t imagine that anyone today would favor sending Covid patients into nursing homes but NY and Michigan did it. Horrible.

                  3. Honest, could you maybe have the handlers of Joe Biden and Ruth Bader Ginsburg prosecuted for gross elder abuse?

                    Could you also maybe have Joe Biden and Ruth Bader Ginsburg prosecuted for egregious abuse of power as a crime of high office?

                    1. George, the problem I have is I can’t tell who is being abused. Is it them suffering at the hands of their families and political operatives or is it us having to listen to them?

            2. Young ……..Re: your response Aug 4 at 12:17 a.m.

              It seems that your mind is always in motion, Constant, perpetual. That has served you well.
              I hope these stories today are headed for your book! They’re interesting, funny, and poignant.

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