The Saturday Picture Show, November 18, 2023

They said it couldn't ever happen, and lookie here: it DID!

My fair and frantic Baltimore is the kind of place where someone spots a car on the light rail tracks but is too cool to say anything about it.

Her real name was Martha Jane Canary, but she packed a lot of living in those 47 years as a frontierswoman, sharpshooter, and storyteller. A friend of Buffalo Bill Cody, she appeared in his Wild West Shows, demonstrating her handiness with a gun and spinning yarns for the audience. She got the Calamity nickname for helping to quell a Native American battle in what is now Sheridan, Wyoming, in 1873.

The hazards of the fire spreading and the air pollution it causes helped bring an end to the old custom of burning leaves, but for those who never had the chance to play along, trust me, nothing smells better than those burning leaves.

We used to have an old-fashioned hardware store near us, the kind with nail buckets and clerks who could cut you a duplicate house key and mix a gallon of paint while he was on the phone with someone looking for a chainsaw chain. They tore it down and we wound up with a CVS now closed. Progress backwards.

One of the natural wonders of the sea is the Stickfish, known by science as Coregonus nasus. This is the only species of fish that is born in rectangular shape, without skin, but with a tasty breading, ready for Friday school lunch as "fish sticks."

To you and me it looks like a Swedish prison cell, but this is actually an apartment in London, available today for single occupancy for someone with but minimal furnishing requirements.

I have to be honest: I am so crazy about Awkwafina that I would watch her make a grilled cheese sandwich or fold her laundry, if someone filmed her. She and Sandra Oh are out with a fun comedy on Hulu right now. It's called Quiz Lady and it gets four hearty thumbs up from me and the missus.

If Cracker Barrel had a gate, it would look like this!

Ever feel like this as you start a new day/week/job/relationship? It's OK to come out of your shell.

So you come out of the water, dripping wet, no glasses on, and all you know is, your glasses, towel, t-shirt, magazine and Yeti are up there under that blue and white umbrella.
 

Sing the friendly skies

Go tell it on the mountain! We've heard all week about Grammy-nominated gospel singer Bobbi Storm almost getting booted off her flight because she would not stop singing.

Ms Storm posted a clip to her Instagram on Saturday showing her in the center aisle of a Delta plane, singing happily while a crew member walks up and asks her to sit down and "be quiet."

So she sits down and says she has sung on other flights in the past and oh yes, she has been nominated for two Grammys. Mild applause ensues.

She's singing her song "We Can't Forget Him" and yet she forgets that He asks us to be humble followers, and when asked to refrain from singing the refrain, she says, "I'm doing what the Lord is telling me to do." 

The crew member - the flight leader - tells her she cannot stay on the plane if she doesn't follow his instructions.

She says she'll be cool, but when the leader walks off, she tells those seated around her that she'll "sing it on the low," and breaks into song again.

The whole thing was eventually settled when she stopped singing. Storm had a video out later in which she said she was not breaking any rules.

She was just "spreading joy."

Listen. We all need joy.  Also peace and quiet and boundaries. Her love of her faith is commendable, and she should sing to her heart's content any time she is in her home or in a room full of people who came for the purpose of hearing her sing.

My personal nightmare is a whole group of people all singing at once.  All different songs, and they all sound like Justin Bieber at his various stages of voice maturation. 

 

Taking the plunge

I believe it was last summer when some kids who were hanging around Harborplace in Downtown Baltimore's waterfront took the notion on a seriously scorching hot day to jump into the harbor.

A lot of the people who watched the scary spectacle were frankly surprised that the kids surfaced and clambered back onto the promenade without their shorts and tees being eaten alive by chemicals,  and without man-eating octopi and piranhas clinging to their appendages.

But! Ever-hopeful downtown boosters are now saying that the city's harbor is plenty safe to swim in and go fishing. The city's Waterfront Partnership is out with their annual Healthy Harbor Report Card to show that the harbor water is of good-enough quality to allow for people actually getting wet with it on dry-weather days.

 

The city has spent over a billion bucks to repair sewers and wastewater handling devices, and say this has resulted in a 97% reduction in sewage overflows in the harbor in the past five years.

And look who's moving in! Menhaden, diamondback turtles, dolphins, and I don't know what-all else has been seen swimming down there.

Look for humans to join them in the tentatively-scheduled "Harbor Splash" in 2024.

You first!

 

 

Apostrophe Catastrophe

In the US, we have Barnes & Noble, the nationwide bookstore chain also known as "Barnes & Nobel" and in Baltimore, as "Barnes & Noble's."

We personalize our stores here by making their name possessive, like "Home Depot's" and "Rite Aid's." It's been going on forever here, and there seems to be nothing anyone can do about it.

Meanwhile. back home in England, there is a chain of bookstores that used to be known as "Waterstone's," but officially changed that to "Waterstones" in 2012, saying that they wanted to make their name simpler to spell "in the digital age."

The TIMES of London newspaper reports there was criticism of this change over the years, even going so far as to say some Britons became "terribly cross" about it. I will have to check with a real English person as to whether being "terribly cross" is worse than "getting one's knickers in a twist."  

The ultimate referee in these matters would be the Apostrophe Protection Society, and they have signalled their approval of the change from Waterstone's to Waterstones. I suppose this decision came after a fun-filled weekend at Caesars Palace.  

The old, correct, way.

The new, wrong, way.

Whooooops

Some of the best pieces of advice I ever received came from older guys I worked with during my checkered career. The produce guy at the A&P once leaned into a group conversation a few of us were having instead of working, and he said, "Boys, before you tell a woman her nylons are sagging, make damn sure she's wearing nylons!"

Noted, and I guess he found out that out the hard way. Also, don't make the mistake I saw a guy make one October 30, by pointing and laughing at someone else's get-up! "What are you supposed to be, Morticia Addams or something?" he guffawed, only to be told that a) Halloween was the next day and b) that clingy black dress was considered high class among those who had any.

And I believe it was Sarah Silverman who coached us all never to congratulate a woman on her pregnancy "unless you actually see a baby coming out of her." Good advice. 

All this is to help us all guard against being like Richard Fairman, critic for the Financial Times. Reviewing opening night of Das Rheingold at the Royal Opera House, Fairman said that 81-year-old actress Rose Knox-Peebles's make-up was "frightful." 

It's only natural!

And then, he found out she wasn't wearing makeup. Fairman said that Ms. Rose Knox-Peebles was "made up to look quite a fright." Knox-Peebles wrote to the paper: "This is not so. I wore no make-up – the 'fright' look is all naturally mine."

McMad

There must be something about McDonald's in the White Marsh section of our county.

A few years ago, on a busy Labor Day, Peggy and I were in line at the one over by the Post Office as the kids behind the counter were sear-sizzling the patties, applying condiments and cheese to them, and wrapping the burgers in rolls to feed the multitude. Yes, it was busy, and people wanted their McLunches and little chicken nuggies and fries and what-have-you. Everyone was working as hard as possible to feed the 5,000 with the five loaves and two fish, when suddenly, to the surprise of all, some yahoo from the back of the line started hollering, "We're hungry!" and "How about a little less talk and a little more work?" and the capper, "I thought this was supposed to be FAST food! Get moving."

Well.  A hush fell over the crowd and no one bothered to pick it up. You could have heard a fry drop in that restaurant as everyone stared at the bigmouth, mouths agape. People looked at him, then at the kids behind the counter, and then back at him. And no one was batting an eye for a while. Eventually the kids, shaking their heads in disbelief, went back to frying and wrapping and bagging.

And Mr Mouth suddenly became Mr Shut His Mouth And Walk Out.

Now comes word that at the other McDonald's, the one down by Target and Lowes, a guy appeared at the drive-thru window the other day, and the only thing he was driving was himself crazy.

Of course, someone was shooting video, and it has now gone viral. You can see it here, if you haven't had your daily fill of insanity.

According to police. the employees said this well-regulated citizen became angry in the drive-thru line and reached in to grab objects and toss them around while demanding food.

 

Police know who he is and they have filed charges, but they offered no further details.

In this year 2023, it really is a miracle that he didn't express himself through his sacred 2nd Amendment rights and turn the Golden Arches into a shooting gallery.

This world, and specifically this country, is rapidly filling up with people of parlous mental conditions. I'll join the millions who prefer to cook and eat their own food in their own homes.

 

Sunday Rerun: Dunk 'em

 From NPR, I read about a man on a noble mission: His name is Alex Schwartz, and he has set a goal to "taste and review every fresh apple cider doughnut" he can find.

He's on Instagram with pictures and locations where these delicacies can be found. He calls himself the "Cider Donuteur." 

And he has a map that shows where to take your cider donut craving, but it doesn't include local Baltimore places. Here in the 410, we go to Weber's Farm in Cub Hill, and Richardson's Farm in Middle River/Cowenton. I've had Weber's, and nothing says autumn like a visit there to stock up on donuts and apples.

If you're wondering, here's why apple cider donuts are so good: they contain apple cider. That sounds simple, but stop and consider how people get so happy about "Pumpkin Spice" everything, none of which contains pumpkin. I've said it a million times: if you want your coffee to taste like pumpkin spice, get a can of pie-ready pumpkin and stir a teaspoonful of it into your java.  I say this, and people act as if I recommended stirring some cyanide in with your Chase & Sanborn. But apple cider makes a plain donut so tasty, I might even add some to my tea one day!

Of course, as with any commodity, there are cider donuts, and there are cider donuts. When Schwartz talks about one of the 32,945 donuts he has had, he judges them by freshness, crumb texture, sugar level and, of course, taste.

You have to hand it to Mr Schwartz, because his goal of tasting one from every farm stand is lofty. He once ate six apple cider doughnuts from six different places in a single day. "My stomach was not super jazzed about that," Schwartz said. "But, you know, I was doing it for the cause."

He goes on to say you should try to get them hot and fresh (uh, yeah!) and look for sweetness, airiness, moistness, crispy fry-ness, and sponginess.

Just don't look for Eliot Ness.

Seriously, it's the best part of the year, and cider donuts are the best part of the best part of the year. Eat them slowly or gobble them, chase them with milk, tea, coffee, whatever. 

Better hurry, though. The next thing you know, all the stores will be full of heavily-iced Thanksgiving cookies in the shape of a turkey, and then Christmas cookies, in the shape of Santa Claus.

And you'll wish you had stocked up on cider donuts and frozen some!

The Saturday Picture Show, November 11, 2023

 

Today is the day for everyone who waited for the sixth annual Patterson Park Brewfest here in Baltimore, from 11:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Many years ago, during the insane summer heat in our town, people who lived near this park would haul their blankets out and sleep beneath the stars there, rather than spend the night in the brick rowhouses than sort of became ovens in summer. Who knows, maybe people will want to sleep there tonight!

If you're decorating for the holidays already, don't forget to water your silver aluminum tree, so it doesn't dry out.

There's nothing like the 30-year-old memories I enjoy, streaming "NYPD Blue" on Hulu. What stories, what visuals, and what a cast! David Caruso, Dennis Franz,  Amy Brenneman, James McDaniel, Sherry Stringfield, and Nicholas Turturro.

Don't be so distracted by the beautiful fall foliage on the Kancamagus Highway in Lincoln, New Hampshire, that you miss the slightly hairy hairpin turn!
This is a real caterpillar on Sanibel Island, Florida. not an inflatable toy. Still...it looks like one!

Did you know there were pink pineapples on this earth? 

Looks like the young kangaroo was acting and was sent to its room! Whatever, they keep things hopping down there.

Dog owners tell me they can reason with their pooches. As a cat man myself, I wouldn't even try.

Slugging first baseman Frank Howard, of the old Washington Senators, hit many a ball a mighty long way. He launched this one way up high in the cheap seats at RFK Stadium. They painted the seat white to commemorate Frank's long homerun, which he hit off a pitcher who actually had a surgery named for him. Ulnar Collateral Ligament Reconstruction is better known as Tommy John surgery.

Baltimore's own Chick Webb suffered from a chronic physical deformity caused by falling down a flight of stairs at the family home in East Baltimore. The mishap left him with limited use of his legs and shoulders, but he could play the drums and lead a band and he became one of the leading swing bandleaders in the 1930s. I'm enjoying a new biography of Chick right now.

What's the score?

 Guess what? I've found a new time-waster. It's a thing called Scorigami, which a guy named Jon Bois developed with a great idea and a hell of a lot of research. What you do is, you look for final scores in NFL games that have never happened before!

There are several ways to score in American Football. A team can't score one point (for a kicked point after touchdown) without having scored a touchdown (six points) first. So there will be no 1-0 games, and there are thousands of them in baseball. The other ways to score are a field goal (three points), a safety (two) and a two point conversion which is the team's option after a touchdown.

This past Sunday, the Houston Texans beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneer 39-37, and that was the first time that score was turned in ever, so SCORIGAMI!

Here's the link to the web page where all the scores are tabulated. You can even put in a score you just made up and find out how many times a game ended with that count - if ever!

 

Plumb crazy

I was thrilled to read that the “Mona Lisa” has given up yet another secret.

Scientists who devote their lives to such matters got an X-ray to look into the chemical skeleton of a little teeny bit of paint from the treasured artwork, and now they know more than they used to know.

Look in your mailbox for the latest issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society (we all subscribe!) and you'll find the article that says Leonardo da Vinci was experimenting with new types of paint when he painted Mona way back in the 16th Century.

They have also ruled out any possibility that the rumor, which I started, that the painting was a paint-by-number project was true. 

Leonardo painted the portrait on a panel of poplar wood, and the scientists have concluded that he mixed up his own based layer to prepare the panel. It's a distinctive chemical preparation, and painters in the pre-Amazon had to make up their own supplies.

In the first layer of paint, researchers found a compound known as plumbonacrite. This proves the long-held theory that Leonardo used lead oxide powder stirred into his paint to thicken it and make it dry faster.

I don't know how they got the paint fragment, but they got a little chunk that was no larger than the diameter of a human hair from the top right corner of the masterpiece.

 The piece of paint was then put into a synchrotron, a machine that accelerates particles to almost the speed of light. It's such a great device that McDonald's is considering buying hundreds of them to install as soft ice cream dispensers, since the ones they have are always breaking down. 

You'll get your ice cream so fast at lunchtime, it'll be served with your breakfast!

 

Seems perfectly normal...

I never met ET the Extra-Terrestrial, but once, I met his sister EZ.

Well, well, well. It turns out there is a program called "Time To Walk" on Apple Fitness+, whatever that is, and recently on that space, Goldie Hawn said that when she was around 20 years of age she had an alien encounter "somewhere in the California desert at a time when there had been a lot of UFO sightings.”

Goldie, who used to make some really great movies such as "Private Benjamin" and "Seems Like Old Times," says it felt like she was being touched "by a finger of God."

This is the most California sentence I have ever typed: She had been dancing outside when she decided to take a nap in another dancer's car, but she couldn't sleep very well, owing to a "high-pitched sound" in her ear.

She continued: “It was this high, high frequency.  And I looked out the window, and I saw these two or three triangular-shaped heads.”

Goldie's aliens were silver-colored, with a slash for a mouth, a "tiny little nose" and no ears. I'm picturing Charlie Brown, wrapped in aluminum foil.

Goldie adds that years later, back here on earth, she met an astrophysicist from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. This person, according to Goldie, studied alien-human meetings, and as she listened, it stirred more memories about her meet-up.

She said, “It was kind of like regression therapy or something. I am, like, almost in a trance. And suddenly I remembered something. They touched my face.”

And that touch felt like  “the finger of God” and “was the most benevolent, loving feeling. This was powerful. It was filled with light.”

Not only that, but the silver space creatures pointed at her in the car where she was trying to catch a nap.

“I could not move. I was paralyzed … I didn’t know if it was real or not real,” she said.

Goldie Hawn, who is allowed to drive cars, own property, and freely walk around in public, says, “We can never, ever lose our wonder. It’s just no fun. It’s really an important aspect of being an adventurer, where nothing is impossible.”

Fellow adventurers, keep venturing. Some day, you might meet Elvis.

Crime Story

There was a time when there were malls in America, full of people working and stores and shoppers and Auntie Anne's pretzels.

One of the popular aspects of our once-glorious White Marsh Mall, where the few shoppers remaining on the promenades hear echoes and see tumbleweeds, was live mannequins in store windows...generally women who had the ability to stand without so much as a flinch and wink.

Flinch &  Wink would have been a better name for a store than Crabtree & Evelyn, but no one asked me.

Anyway, a guy in Poland tried something similar, standing in front of a store faking like a mannequin.

And then he stole stuff from the shopping center after it closed!

"A 22-year-old with a bag in his hand froze motionless, pretending to be a mannequin in front of a shop window," police said in a statement. "In this way, he wanted to avoid being exposed by the cameras."

He stole jewelry from a jewelry store, and once he slipped into a clothing store and swapped his old clothes for their new clothes. He also stole money from cash register tills around the mall. 

The Polish Police say he could face ten years in prison, and let's see him try standing motionless in the Big House!

Looks like he'll stick around

In light of the fact that former Baltimore City Police Detective Daniel Hersl has been declared terminally ill. you wouldn't think that there would be much opposition to granting him early release from his 18-year prison sentence, currently due to end in July 2031.

You woldn't think so, except for one thing.

Hersl was given 18 years for racketeering. That's a nice way to express what he did, which was to brutalize citizens, steal thousands of dollars from them, and fake evidence that sent innocent people to jail. He has been locked up, with the result that people were safe from his depredations, for six years and eight months.  

His prostate cancer has metastasized through his body, and that is the basis for his request for compassionate release for a man who showed no compassion on the streets of Baltimore.

The prison doctor gives him 18 months.

In opposing early release, U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland Erek L. Barron filed documents last week saying that Hersl has not expressed remorse for his crimes.

“Hersl’s six years of incarceration have not been rehabilitative. Hersl expresses no remorse and does not accept responsibility for his crimes,” Barron wrote. “He should not be released.”

Look at the grim eyes.

The federal prosecutors allow that this diagnosis makes Hersl eligible to be sprung, but also claim that there is a precedent that reducing a bid by more than half minimizes the effect of his crimes on the city and lightens the seriousness of what he did.

“Courts often grant compassionate release for terminally-ill defendants when they have accepted responsibility, shown signs of rehabilitation, and repaid victims,” Barron wrote in the filing. “When a defendant has not shown any signs of remorse or mitigation, courts have denied compassionate release, even when the defendant was terminally ill. Here, there is no evidence of any rehabilitation by Hersl. He has opposed paying restitution to his victims.”

Daniel Hersl refuses to say he's sorry. Tough guy...to the end. So be it.

Sunday Rerun (9/4/18): You know it ain't easy

 Many of us studied Spanish back in the day, and learned to point to Madrid as the capital of the nation and how to ask for the check at a restaurant or directions to the train station.

But we never heard a word about the fascist government that ruled the nation with the proverbial iron fist, with an estimated 40,000 people being killed by forces loyal to "His Excellency" Generalísimo Francisco Franco, who suppressed all dissent, sending his opposition to death in concentration camps.

Gee whiz! We didn't hear anything about this, and I'll bet most Americans didn't know who was in charge over there until Franco died in 1975 and Chevy Chase announced the news on SNL's "Weekend Update" and then continued the gag by announcing, week after week, that "Generalísimo Francisco Franco is still dead!"

Richard Nixon, who had just vacated the US presidency 15 months earlier, apparently didn't know much about the old Generalísimo,  because he went on record with this statement: "General Franco was a loyal friend and ally of the United States. He earned worldwide respect for Spain through firmness and fairness."

Except for those 40,000 dead people, but whatevs. You would think that Nixon, a naval officer himself during World War II, would have remembered Franco making Spanish ports available to German and Italian naval vessels.

Until his death, Franco employed four censors at the Directorate of Popular Culture in Madrid. They had to listen to all the records that came along (and watch all the movies, and read all the books) to make sure that no Spaniard saw anything with sexual, blasphemous or politically subversive content.  They wound up banning, or at least partially censoring, 4,343 songs.

One of which is one of my favorite Beatle songs!  The Ballad of John and Yoko irritated His Excellency for reasons we'll get into a minute, but let me get all Casey Kasem on you for a minute.

The record label of "The Ballad of John and Yoko" credited it to The Beatles, but only John Lennon and Paul McCartney were involved in cutting the song on April 14, 1969. George was off doing his Maharishi thing, and I believe Ringo was making a Peter Sellers movie, so when Lennon wrote the song about his and Yoko's troubles getting married and demonstrating for peace, he called Paul and they recorded it themselves, with John on guitars and Paul on bass, piano, maracas and drums!

Two lines from the lyrics have always held my interest: "Caught the early plane back to London, fifty acorns tied in a sack" refers to John and Yoko distributing acorns to as many people as they could find, hoping to have them plant trees for the cause of peace. One wonders if any of those trees survived, or if any of the hopes of peace did.

and "Peter Brown called to say, you can make it O.K, you can get married in Gibraltar near Spain..."  Peter Brown was one of the men on the Beatles' business team, and he arranged for the wedding to take place in Gibraltar, which was, at the time, a British protectorate, which Franco bitterly contested.

So he made the record company remove the offensive words "Gibraltar near Spain" from the record.

And now you know the rest of the story. Franco is still dead as a doornail. But one last tidbit:  at the end of "Ballad of John and Yoko," John threw in a little fancy Spanish flamenco guitar hook, a nod to his playing on the Beatles' version of "Lonesome Tears in My Eyes," an old Johnny Burnette song from early Beatle days.

The Saturday Picture Show, November 4, 2023

 

What a difference a day makes! Halloween is over and now we move on to the best holidays: Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the New Year!

No matter how bedraggled this car may be, you still can tell it's a '57 Chevy. But tell me, 66 years from now...66 minutes from now...will you be able to tell a Sonata from a Sorento?

If you share my fondness for Selena Gomez and her cooking show, be sure to look for "Selena + Chef Home for the Holidays," premiering on the Food Network on Thursday November 30th!

This is why I am against carpooling. It dates back to this scene in The Godfather, which instilled in me a dread of last-minute carpool rescheduling.  

I'm all for the wild sox! They lend a certain panache, no matter what else you're wearing.

You really want to be careful walking back to your house late at night if you live here.

Speaking of houses...the only kind of Peeps I like, right here!

This might make a nice wallpaper...Baltimore in the fog.

It looks like this abandoned theater was abandoned in a hurry!

In the wake of Matthew Perry's death, people made a makeshift shrine at the Manhattan apartment building which was the location for exterior shots on "Friends."

This is never going to twerk

Why do so many people have a problem keeping their church business out of everyone else's business? 

In our Constitution, we have a little thing called the establishment clause, which  prohibits the government from creating an official religion or favoring one religion (or nonreligion) over another.  Although the term "separation of church and state" does not appear in the document, the concept is what says you can do what you wish in the area of religion and so can I and so can Kaylee Timonet.

I know you were going to ask who Kaylee is. Kaylee is 17, she's the student government president at Walker High School down in Louisiana. She is a scholarship candidate, so you can see she's not a bad kid at all. 

On September 30, Walker High had their Homecoming festivities, and there was a party that Kaylee attended off campus. The hired DJ at the party took a video of the kids dancing around and posted it on the socials to promote his business. 

And it now becomes my sad duty to tell you that three days after the DJ posted the dance, Walker High Principal Jason St. Pierre told her she was out of her post with student government and he was not not going to recommend her for college scholarships.

Unprincipled Principal St. Pierre

 St. Pierre dragged Kaylee and the assistant principal into his office and told her she wasn't "living in the Lord's way," according to what her mother told The Advocate newspaper. He was helpful enough to print out  Bible verses and highlight some sections that "questioned who her friends were and if they followed the Lord," the Advocate reported.

Someone put a little sense into old Jason. A few days later, he put a statement on the school system Facebook page, saying that all the hubbub had given him time to think things over, and he wished to apologize to Kaylee and her family and undo his dumb decisions. And he mentioned religion, which is not supposed to have a thing to do with public schools:

"Finally, during my conversation with (the student) regarding the dance party, the subject of religious beliefs was broached by (the student) and myself," St. Pierre wrote. "While that conversation was meant with the best intentions, I do understand it is not my responsibility to determine what students' or others' religious beliefs may be – that should be the responsibility of the individual."

Well, he still messed up her chance to get a scholarship, because he didn't have this grand epiphany until AFTER the deadline for applications.

He then put in a for a leave of absence for the rest of this school year.

Those who wish to have religion influence their children's school are cordially invited to enroll their children in private parochial schools. 

Perhaps St. Pierre should apply for a job at one of them.

"ME ME ME ME ME!"

I don't know what prompted Ana Navarro of "The View" to post this on Instagram. It makes me think of those old movies where people haughtily toss the doorman a quarter.  The absolute effrontery of thinking that because you are with your rich important friends that your neighbors have to forfeit their right to a quiet evening in their homes.  And looking down on police officers, thinking that he could not "shut-down" (sic) a party. Look, that happens to be the job you and your neighbors are paying him to do. He came to your door because you were violating a local noise ordinance and you flippantly offered him a cocktail.

Maybe if you want to have a loud party for 40 of "the most fun people you know," rent a hall somewhere and stop annoying the neighborhood. And please stop being so pompous and supercilious towards the police and the people who, sadly, live within hearing distance of the noise you make without concern for them.

And to those who rise to her support saying it was "just one party," ask your lawyer friend if it's ok to hold up "just one 7-Eleven."  A crime is a crime because it violates the laws, no matter if it's the first or the hundred-and-first time. 

I am always happy to see people having a fun time, but there is an old legal principle at play here, one that says, "Your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins."

Bad Old Days

In 1857, Edward Garrison Draper was totally qualified to practice law in Maryland. A judge in Baltimore said he was “qualified in all respects.” 

Except one.

I think you see the reason why he was denied admission to the bar. He was then the first known case of someone being denied admission to the Maryland bar because of his race and nothing more.

Last week, the Supreme Court of Maryland took action to correct that error, holding a special session to admit Draper posthumously to practice law in the state. "Better late than never" does not apply when the person in question has long since passed on.

“Maryland was not at the forefront of welcoming Black applicants to the legal profession,” understated former appellate Justice John G. Browning, of Texas. Browning was one the people involved with petitioning for Draper’s admission. “But by granting posthumous bar admission to Edward Garrison Draper, this court places itself and places Maryland in the vanguard of restorative justice and demonstrates conclusively that justice delayed may not be justice denied.”

As if that will do Attorney Draper a blessed bit of good.

This delayed admission will be the state's first, says Justice Shirley M. Watts, of the Maryland Supreme Court. She continued, people “can only imagine” the legal career that Draper may have had, she said, and how history would have been different had he been given a chance to appear in a courtroom. She even posits that “some of the legal battles for civil rights that were fought later could’ve been fought sooner.”

Back in 1857, Judge Z. Collins Lee evaluated Draper's qualifications and certified that he was “most intelligent and well informed in his answers” and would be qualified “if he was a free white Citizen of this State.”

Fun fact: Z. Collins Lee was a cousin of Robert E. Lee, the Confederate General, himself a slave owner.

John Bel Edwards, governor of Louisiana, recently pardoned Homer A. Plessy, who was convicted for refusing to ride in the "colored" train car. Edwards said, “No matter is ever settled until it is settled right.”

It just shouldn't take 166 years to settle things right.