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Saturday, March 30, 2019

So hanging with one of my few oldest friends remaining while he watches his wife fade away, he observes:

This is when I’d like everyone to come to pay their respects.
Now, while she may still be able to hear their voices.
While they could have a last vision of her to add into a lifetime of memories.

A funeral parlor visit?
To shake hands?
Not so much.

I want her ashes with me.
Not going to scatter them.
After sixty-five years of being with her, I’m not going to just let her go.

I’m not a religious man, so I don’t blame God for not intervening.
If he could, why single any one of us out.
It’s just life that we have to accept.

He pauses.

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Postings Count, Weather Brief, and Dinner
Saturday, March 30, 2019

My 358th consecutive posting, committed to 5,000.
After 358 posts we’re at the 7.16% mark of my commitment, the commitment a different way of marking the passage of time.

Time is 12.01am.

On Saturday Boston’s temperature will reach a high of 59* with a feels-like temperature of 57* under partly cloudy skies.

Dinner of Roast Chicken.

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Question of the Day:
Who was Mabel Walker Willebrandt?

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Love your notes.
Contact me at existentialautotrip@hotmail.com

This from Tommie T from South Carolina on the milestones’ post:

We are not "promised a rose garden" and even more important, we are not promised tomorrow. 

Web Meister responds: Ain’t that the truth.

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Chuckle of the Day

Hello, and welcome to the mental health hotline.
If you are obsessive-compulsive, press 1 repeatedly.
If you are co-dependent, please ask someone to press 2 for you.
If you have multiple personalities, press 3, 4, 5, and 6.
If you are paranoid, we know who you are and what you want. Stay on the line so we can trace your call.
If you are delusional, press 7 and your call will be transferred to the mother ship.
If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a small voice will tell you which number to press.
If you are manic-depressive, it doesn’t matter which number you press, no one will answer.
If you are dyslexic, press 969696969696969.
If you have a nervous disorder, please fidget with the dash key until a representative comes on the line.
If you have amnesia, press 8 and state your name, address, phone number, date of birth, social security number, and your mother’s maiden name.
If you have post-traumatic stress disorder, slowly and carefully press 000.
If you have bipolar disorder, please leave a message after the beep or before the beep. Or after the beep. Please wait for the beep.
If you have low self-esteem, please hang up. All our operators are too busy to talk to you.
If you have short-term memory loss, press 9. If you have short-term memory loss, press 9. If you have short-term memory loss, press 9. If you have short-term memory loss, press 9…

 
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Answer to the Question of the Day:
Who was Mabel Walker Willebrandt?

Willebrandt was born Mabel Elizabeth Walker in Woodsdale, Kansas, on May 23, 1889.
Her father, David W. Walker, edited a local newspaper.

In February 1910, she married Arthur Willebrandt, the principal of the school where she was teaching, and they moved to Phoenix, where he recuperated from tuberculosis while she finished college and supported them on a teacher's salary.
She graduated from Tempe Normal School, later Arizona State University, in 1911.

In 1912, the Willebrandts moved to Los Angeles, where she taught elementary school and studied law at night.
She received her law degree from the University of Southern California in 1916 and an LL.M. a year later.
During her time at USC, she was a member of Phi Delta Delta legal sorority.
The Willebrandts separated in 1916 and divorced in 1924.

During her last semester of law school, Willebrandt began doing pro bono work in the police courts while still teaching full-time.
Ultimately she argued 2,000 cases as the city's first female public defender, handling mostly cases of prostitution.
Her efforts led courts to permit the testimony of both men and women.
She also campaigned successfully for the enactment of a revised community property statute at the state level.
After graduating, she opened a practice in downtown Los Angeles, along with Fred Horowitz, who later built the Chateau Marmont.

During World War I, Willebrandt served as head of the Legal Advisory Board for draft cases in Los Angeles.
In 1921, at age 32, her law school professor and mentor, Frank Doherty, as well as Senator Hiram Johnson and all the judges in southern California, recommended her for the post of Assistant Attorney General in the Warren G. Harding administration.

During World War I, Willebrandt served as head of the Legal Advisory Board for draft cases in Los Angeles.
In 1921, at age 32, her law school professor and mentor, Frank Doherty, as well as Senator Hiram Johnson and all the judges in southern California, recommended her for the post of Assistant Attorney General in the Warren G. Harding administration.

Mabel Walker Willebrandt (May 23, 1889 – April 6, 1963), popularly known to her contemporaries as the First Lady of Law, was a U.S. Assistant Attorney General from 1921 to 1929, handling cases concerning violations of the Volstead Act, federal taxation, and the Bureau of Federal Prisons during the Prohibition Era.

Only the second woman to receive an appointment to Assistant Attorney General, and the first to serve an extended term, Willebrandt was officially appointed to the position on September 27, 1921.
She was the highest-ranking woman in the federal government at the time and first woman to head the Tax Division.
Among her duties, Willebrandt headed the division in the Justice Department dealing with federal taxation, federal prisons, and matters relating to the enforcement of the Volstead Act.
Under her administration Alderson federal prison, the first facility of its kind for women, was established at Alderson, West Virginia.

Although a personal opponent of Prohibition, Willebrandt aggressively upheld the Volstead Act. So seriously did she take the work of enforcing Prohibition that the press christened her, among other nicknames, "Deborah of the Drys" and "Mrs. Firebrand."
In her book The Inside of Prohibition, she described political interference, incompetent public officials, and public indifference in the federal government's efforts to enforce the law.
Willebrandt's insistence to other federal agencies to prosecute bootleggers, specifically the Bureau of Prohibition and law enforcement agencies, were initially hampered by the skepticism of senior officials in the Justice and United States Treasury Departments, who frequently overlooked her advice.

Despite the unpopularity of the law among both the general population and within the government, the underfunding of the Prohibition Bureau, and widespread bribery of enforcement agents, Willebrandt focused on reviewing prosecutions for violations of the Volstead Act, rating the work of U.S. Attorneys from inefficient to obstructionist.
Willebrandt's actions earned her criticism among American attorneys after she dismissed several prosecutors who were hostile towards the prosecution of Volstead Act related cases.

During the early years of her administration, Willebrandt was successful in some of the biggest prosecutions during Prohibition, including the 1923 prosecution of the "Big Four of Savannah," reportedly the largest bootlegging ring in the U.S., as well as the bootlegging operations of Cincinnati bootlegger George Remus.
According to the annual report of the U.S. Attorney General, Willebrandt's office had prosecuted 48,734 Prohibition-related cases from June 1924 to June 1925, of which 39,072 resulted in convictions.
In addition, Willebrandt submitted 278 cases of certiorari to the Supreme Court regarding the defense, clarification and enforcement of the Prohibition Amendment and the Volstead Act.
She also argued more than 40 cases before the Supreme Court, a number few others have attained, and won several victories in cases regarding the control of liquor sales on both American and foreign vessels.

She developed the idea of prosecuting major crime figures for income tax evasion, an approach the Supreme Court upheld in 1927 and which enabled the successful prosecution of Al Capone in 1931.

Her extensive writing and speech-making in support of Prohibition won praise from President Herbert Hoover.
During the 1928 presidential campaign, Democratic candidate and Prohibition opponent Al Smith called her "Prohibition Portia."
She also argued for the federal prosecution of major bootleggers, saying that prosecuting speakeasies was "...like trying to dry up the Atlantic Ocean with a blotter."

Among her efforts to enforce Prohibition, Willebrandt proposed the reallocation of federal judges to create more flexibility regarding prosecutions against Prohibition violations, the transfer of enforcement from the Treasury to Justice Department, better articulation and training for law enforcement personnel, and longer sentencing for Prohibition violations; she also recommended J. Edgar Hoover to head the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

During the 1928 presidential election she campaigned openly for Republican Herbert Hoover, who was a "dry" or supporter of Prohibition.
Some of her tactics were criticized by Democratic candidate Al Smith, a "wet", particularly when she addressed a gathering of Methodist ministers in Ohio and urged them to tell their congregations to vote for Hoover.
She also orchestrated several high-profile raids of speakeasies timed to coincide with the Democratic convention where Smith was nominated.
After Hoover's election, the press declared that "no other woman has ever had so much influence on a presidential campaign."

Willebrandt expected to be rewarded for her political loyalty by being appointed Attorney General.
But when Hoover passed her over, Willebrandt resigned her post in 1929.

She returned to private practice and had offices in Washington and Los Angeles.
In 1950, she served as counsel to the Screen Directors Guild during a labor hearing.
She pioneered the fields of aviation and radio law and became an expert in federal regulations and taxes.
She represented major industries, including Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the Screen Directors Guild of America, Aviation Corp. of America and California Fruit Industries, a major producer of table wine.
She defended Louis B. Mayer before the IRS and represented celebrities such as Jean Harlow, Clark Gable, and Jeanette MacDonald.

She was the first woman to chair a committee of the American Bar Association, heading its committee on aeronautical law.
She also got her pilot's license and promoted air travel with Amelia Earhart, a fellow member of the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce.
She also held several honorary doctorates.

After stirring anti-Catholic sentiment, particularly against Democratic candidate Al Smith in the 1928 U.S. presidential election, who was a Catholic and also in favor of the repeal of Prohibition, Willebrandt later in life became a Catholic.

Willebrandt died of lung cancer in Riverside, California, on April 6, 1963.
She was survived by her adopted daughter, Dorothy Rae.
Her lifelong friend, Judge John J. Sirica, who would later preside over the Watergate case, said of her, "If Mabel had worn trousers, she could have been president."

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Good Morning on this Saturday, the Thirtieth Day of March.

Today we talked about sadness.
About the weather, calendar, and dinner of Roast Chicken.
We posted a joke and an observation from Tommie Toner.
And we asked and answered a question on Mabel.
 
And now? Gotta go.

Che vuoi? Le pocketbook?

See you soon.

Your Love