Monday was glorious. While you were slaving over how to achieve World
Peace, I was on the water, picking out crab for dinner. By dint of
much sweat, we managed to haul in a sufficiency for all the folk we had
invited to dinner. Then we arrived home to find that four of these
folk had decided not to come and thus a sufficiency was transformed
into a feast.
Yesterday was back to the classroom, followed by somewhat strange
tennis in which grown men got all huffy about line calls. There is, I
believe, an inverse relationship between the skill of the player and
the likelihood of disputed line calls. A black guy from the south,
with whom I was playing, asked the two middle eastern guys on the other
side of the net to behave with more "gennelmanliness." I was quite
happy to lose the set and move onto another match. By "match" I don't
mean to imply that anything was at stake. On men's night, the pro
matches you with people and then re-shuffles the cards. The outcome of
the set means absolutely nothing.
Gosia Wozniakcka writes in today's "Oregonian" that the secretary of
state has removed Brad Fudge from two campaign races because Fudge is
guilty of running in both of them. Oregon law says you can't run in
two races simultaneously if, and only if, the races are for "lucrative"
offices. Fudge was running for state legislature, a job that pays
$1487 a month and he also filed to run for mayor of the town of
Fairview, a job that comes with no salary but which comes with use of a
state car and up to $75 a month reimbursement of phone bills. This,
apparently, is the local definition of "lucrative."
Meanwhile, Leslie Roberts has asked the secretary of state to drop
Youlee Yim You from the ballot for a Multnomah County judgeship.
Youlee Yim You and Roberts have known one another for fifteen years,
lived next door to one another for much of that time and are now
running against one another for the judgeship. One of the five judges
who have endorsed You said of Roberts' move, "Lady Macbeth is not who
we aspire to be as judges. It doesn't help the bench at all." What
makes Roberts "Lady MacBeth"? After years as Roberts' neighbor, You
moved to New York, but held onto her Oregon home. Then she moved to
L.A. and sold the Portland house. When the house came back on the
market Roberts' husband e-mailed You (and spouse), "Hey, interested in
the old house?" You moved back, got a job with the attorney general's
office, was appointed by the governor to serve the remainder of a
retiring judge's term.
Roberts is the stepdaughter of a former governor and a former supreme
court justice.
Oregon law says that candidates for judge must have been residents of
the state in the three years prior to running. When You filed, the
local elections official saw the same address for umpteen years and
assumed continuous occupancy. Roberts pointed the problem out to You,
who said she read the law to mean that any three years of residency
would count. Roberts filed a complaint citing, among other cases, one
decided by her husband, a judge on the court of appeals.
You's lawyer is not contesting the facts of the case, but contends that
the residency law is unconstitutional.
Roberts gets the last word in the article, "Youlee You is a lovely
person. We wanted her to be our neighbor. I want the best for her. I
just don't think she'd doing the best for herself right now."
David Ritchie, Portland, Oregon
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