Greta Garbo, Ingrid Bergman and Lisa Gerritsen

Greta Garbo approached the 1940's with some trepidation. Though she had been the top star in Hollywood for more than a decade, she no longer was the young ingénue. Though still beautiful, she wasn't necessarily a first choice for the major roles.
Unwilling to be a second choice, she did the most extraordinary thing. Because she respected herself, she quit acting and moved to New York: Greta Garbo walked away a winner.

 

 

Ingrid Bergman, also Swedish, was famous for being her own woman. At 5'9", she towered over many of the leading male stars of her time. Directors wanted her to stand in "trenches" so she wouldn't be seen as taller than her male co-stars. She refused, her logic was: why can't a tall woman fall in love with a shorter man. But in Casablanca the studio demanded accommodation, Humphrey Bogart was forced to neutralize her greater height, which Ingrid found amusing, she found Humphrey charming and said it made no difference to her:

When Directors and studio heads requested that she be made up with heavy layers of make-up; she said no. She was always tanned and didn't think it was necessary. All people who knew Ingrid, said that the one thing that you knew about Ingrid was that she was no phony.

Lisa Gerritsen, starred in "The Mary Tyler Moore Show' and "Phyllis" a spinoff : after "Phyllis" ended, Lisa made a decision to go to college and focused on the computer industry. She has never looked back and has been quite successful in her second career since then. She and her parents made a number of intelligent choices. Lisa used a stage name, pursued her education and quit when her career was no longer fulfilling.  The extraordinary think about Lisa was the she believed in herself and didn't need anyone else's approval. When the time came and she wasn't happy, she quit.

 

Grace Kelly was one of the guys; she never needed special treatment and gave as good as she got. Her father Jack started out as a brick mason, worked harder than anyone else and made millions, he told his children, we Irish don't take anything from anybody because we earn everything we own and we don't want special treatment. A Classy woman by any measure.

 

 

 

 

 

Jayne Mansfield was a huge star of the middle 50's through June 29, 1967 when she was killed in a horrible car wreck. Her children were with her and luckily survived(including Law and Order SVU's Mariska Hargitay). What most people don't know is that she possessed an IQ of 163(Genius) and spoke five languages. Gee, I wonder how people overlooked her intellectual accomplishments.

 

 

Marilyn Monroe was actually much different than what most people believed her to be.  She loved kids and went out of her way to interact and entertain  them when she worked with them in her movies. Everyone said that Marilyn was looking for happiness and children seemed to be the largest part of it.

 

"One of the things that I remember most about her is that she was very personable," Morley says of Monroe. "You can sense as a little kid who really cares about you and who could care less. I distinctly remember that she was very warm, that she would spend time talking to you as another human being, as opposed to some of the other actors (Dean Martin, Cyd Charisse and Wally Cox co-starred). At least as a kid, it felt pretty genuine.
"She was very sensitive. I remember my scenes with her a lot more than with the others, which were very mechanical."
Robert Christopher Morley who appeared with Marilyn in her last movie "Something's Got To Give" from which she was fired(though later rehired) shortly before her drug overdose.  He was 8-years-old at the time.

 

Klementy Nagorny and The Russian Royal Family, a tale of character and courage.

I have a separate page on the end of Romanov Dynasty and how the English were at least partially responsible for the murder of Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia and 14-year-old Czarevitch Alexei and fully responsible for the murder or Rasputin. The English and Russian Prime Minister Kerensky were also integral to the success of the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution and the murder of patriot Admiral Kolchak. https://briankeithohara.blogspot.com/2021/06/the-man-who-murdered-russian-royal.html

Klementy Nagorny(1889-1918) was a sailor on the Russian Imperial Yacht Standardt.  A good man and reliable, competent sailor, he was also well known among the officers and men aboard ship for being a good father to his children(one source said he had three children) and a good  husband. Nagorny had served aboard the Standardt for about 10 years and had won the respect and friendship of all aboard. He became a special favorite of the Royal Family.  With the coming of the Revolution he chose to share the fate of Nicholas II, his wife, Alexandra, and their children, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia and Alexei, in their journey from the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoe Selo, to the Governor's Palace at Tobolsk and then finally to the Bolshevik's "House of Special Purpose"(Ipatiev House) in Yekaterinburg.  Nagorny acted as a companion and protector of the sick Russian Tsarevitch.

Standardt Sailor Klementy Nagorny

Je dédie ce livre à l'héroïque marin-paysan, Clementi Grigorivitch Nagorny qui, jusqu'au sacrifice de sa vie, défendit le tsarévitch.

It is incredibly insensitive when people confuse Klementy Nagorny and Andrey Eremeyevich Derevenko the other companion for the young Tsarevitch. Both men when confronted by the apocalypse which was the Russian Revolution but chose different paths. Nagorny chose honor and death, "the road less taken" and remained loyal to the Imperial Family, while  Deverenko chose self preservation, an understandable but an un-courageous decision.

Alexei(H), Deverenko(D) and Klementy Nagorny(KH)

From Chapter XV of Memories of the Russian Court, by Anna Vyrubova:

"Shaken though I was with that experience, I had one more agony to bear. When my chair was being wheeled back along the corridor I passed the open door of Alexei's room, and this is what I saw. Lying sprawled in a chair was the sailor Derevenko, for many years the personal attendant of the Tsarevich, and on whom the family had bestowed every kindness, every material benefit. Bitten by the mania of revolution, this man was now displaying his gratitude for all their favors. Insolently he bawled at the boy whom he had formerly loved and cherished, to bring him this or that, to perform any menial service his mean lackey's brain could think of. Dazed and apparently only half conscious of what he was being forced to do, the child moved about trying to obey. It was too much to bear. Hiding my face in my hands, I begged them to take me away from the sickening spectacle."

Anya was Empress Alexandra's best friend and confidant, she was arrested with the fall of the monarchy, but later was able to flee to Finland.

The one great strength of Nagorny was his good cheer, he was able to revive the spirits of his charge, the Tsarevitch, but also of other members of the family as well. All of them genuinely liked and appreciated his good spirit and company. The atmosphere at Tsarskoe Selo was unsettled and dark, at Tobolsk it became ominous, especially after the replacement of regular army soldiers and their commander Colonel Kobylinski with revolutionaries on April 22, 1918. Colonel Kobylinski fought to maintain order and discipline among the troops. Colonel Kobylinski was an honorable man who acted honorably, even in those extraordinary times, when far less might be expected or excused. He tried to maintain military discipline among "his" troops. But as the revolution progressed, his men began to refuse to obey his orders and showed barely disguised contempt for him and open hostility and hatred for the Royal Family. Nicholas made a comment in his diary describing him as "our good commandant".

 Colonel Kobylinski, commanding officer of the guard detachment at Tsarskoe Selo and Tobolsk

One story gives you an idea of the kind of man Colonel Kobylinski was. 12-year-old Alexei had a favorite toy rifle which was made of wood. At one point it was seized by his guards. The Colonel retrieved it, but warned Nicholas and Alexei that it must only be brought out behind closed doors when only the family was present. Colonel Kobylinski was later killed fighting for the White Russians under Admiral Kolchak against the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War.
It was during this dark period at Tobolsk, that Alexei took a sled and attempted to slide down the main stairway at the Governor's House. Having hemophilia, the subsequent injury became a catastrophe for the heir. (Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert Massie, 1968)

While in Siberia, he rode a sled down the stairs of the prison house and injured himself in the groin. Because of his hemophilia, he began massive hemorrhaging. The hemorrhage was very bad, and he was so ill that he could not be moved so the Bolsheviks only transferred his parents and older sister Maria to Yekaterinburg in April 1918. Alexei and his three other sisters remained behind in Tobolsk until he was well enough to travel. They  joined the rest of the family weeks later. He was confined to a wheelchair for the remaining weeks of his life.
Wikipedia

 The stairway on which Alexei slid down on his sled.


The pain was so horrendous, that Alexei would beg to die and be put out of his misery.  His mother, The Empress Alexandra, was in pure agony, listening to the suffering of her son.  A shy woman, which most people interpreted as arrogance or an imperious nature, without her friend Anya and lady's in waiting from the court, her life had become beyond most people's endurance. Then to be separated by the Bolsheviks...

Olga and Alexei on board the Steamer Rus on the way to Yekaterinburg from Tobolsk. During the trip Alexei and Nagorny were locked in their cabin. One story told afterwards was that Alexei's sisters were heard screaming at night during the trip from Tobolsk, when Nagorny tried to investigate, he was severely beaten by their Bolshevik guards.

Once Colonel Kobylinsky was replaced with the Bolshevik Yurovsky, the situation degenerated quickly. One of Colonel Kobylinski last acts as commander was to apologize to Nicholas Romanov(II) for his inability to do more for his charges. Though a Social Democrat and ambivalent about the Monarchy, he nonetheless chose to be a decent, civilized human being. After his departure things got progressively worse, Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia were forced to use to the latrine accompanied by armed guards, who made vulgar and suggestive comments along the way to humiliate the Grand Duchesses. The guards also covered the outhouse in obscene graffiti. They demeaned and insulted the Tsar at every opportunity. At Yekaterinburg things only got worse.

Nagorny and Citizen Nicholas Romanov, working in the Gardens at Tsarskoe Selo.

Nagorny was the target for special mistreatment by the Bolsheviks, being beaten repeatedly, once for attempting to assist Tatiana Romanov who was struggling to carry her luggage from the train station at Yekaterinburg. Prince Lvov tells a story repeated in the movie "Nicholas and Alexandra"(1970):

On May 26, 1918 one of the guards tried to steal a thin gold chain and crucifix from Tsarevitch Alexis. Nagorny tried to stop him, but he in turn was seized by the guards and arrested. Nagorny was thrown in to the Yekaterinburg jail and shot either on May 31 or June 1st. Without Nagorny,  Nicholas and Dr. Botkin had to assume care of the injured Tsarevitch. Including carrying him through the garden of Ipatiev House(The House of Special Purpose).
One of the ironies of history is that the first Romanov Tsar, Michael Romanov, had been proclaimed Tsar of all the Russias at the Ipatiev Monastery at Kostroma, Russia(He was crowned on July 22, 1613) and the last Tsar murdered at Ipatiev House on July 17, 1918. in Yekaterinburg. Only a few years before, The Romanovs celebrated the 300th Anniversary of their rule of Russia.


Things took an ominous turn when the kitchen boy, 14-year-old Sednev, failed to show up for work one day in July 1918, a few days before the family was murdered. Apparently, Yurovsky's men made it clear that they wouldn't kill the boy. He was a poor kid who had done nothing wrong. The Bolsheviks put him on a train to relatives out in the country. With the approaching of the Whites and the Czech fighters, the Bolsheviks murdered the Royal Family July 16, 1918, including the children. Sednev would live until 1925, though one version of events says he lived until 1941. He quietly shared his experiences with Romanovs, whom he had come to love. He is rumored to have written his experiences in a booklet, which is apparently lost to history.

Found among the papers and possessions of the Russian Royal Family at "The House of Special Purpose" in Yekaterinburg by  the White Russian Army which captured the city from the Bolsheviks is this letter from the Tsarevitch Alexei to his best friend Kolya. Oddly, Alexei ended the undelivered letter with "the end" as a closing, not a conventional choice and not one which Alexei had ever used before.  Kolya lived until the 1990's and gave an interview for Russian TV in which he discussed his friendship with Alexei.

 

Transcript of Alexei's last letter:

Ekaterinburg

Dear Kolya,

All of my sisters send greetings to you, your mother and
grandmother. I feel well myself. My head was aching
all day, but now the pain has gone completely. I
embrace you warmly. Greetings to the Botkins from all of
us.

Always yours

Alexei

Konets(The END in Russian)

 

Kolya is to the left in this picture taken in the winter of 1916. Left to right, Kolya, Alexei, Tatiana, Maria, Olga, Anastasia and Nicholas II.

From the Alexander Palace Forum, translation of an interview with Koyla Deverenko in the 1990's. Available on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DsS5EVu0-c


I was a little boy, just 12 years old...I didn't know anything about people's evil.....We lived in Popov house, very close to Ipatiev house. In the middle of summer 1918, I was afraid, and I was preoccupied about Aleksei.I wanted to see him. And, I am sure, he wanted to see me. Until that sad 17th july 1918. My father, Gilliard, Gibbes and other...they knew everything, but I NOTHING....Something terrible was going to happen, but I didn't know what....In the last week of july 1918, I , my father, Gilliard, Gibbes,etc. entered at Ipatiev house.Terrible scene....House was in completelly chaos. Diaries, letters, albums, and others items was all around in house. 'But where is Leskela?'-I asked my father, but I he didn't answe me. Leskela's diary...was taken by one guard,I think his name was Nemetkin,I don't know. But Leonid Sednev....I saw him. He cried. His cried so aloud, so aloud!!!!!
'Papa, where is my Leskela?'-I cried.
'They killed him'-he cried
'Ho...how?'
'they killed tsar, tsarina, and GDs also.All are dead."-said my father.
"I don't understand','where...where are bones'
'We don't know, maybe we'll never discover them'
My world was destroyed.They destroyed Russia, no more illusions...I found Leskela's last letter written to me.Especially one sentence in that letter-'I hug you warmly'-made me cry..I thought 'And I hug you warmly, too, my dear friend, and my tsar...'
I was in shock.In later years, I think just about him. 'Why did they killed you? In USSR wassn't a little space for my Leskela......We'l be forever friends, my dear tsesarevich....I want to see you just ONE more time, and I can die in peace......

From a Russian website, reposted:
http://forum.alexanderpalace.org/index.php/topic,9716.msg273644.html#msg273644

Justice

Max Hoffmann was a German Colonel in Military Intelligence in World War I; by all accounts  he was a brilliant intelligence officer and even better strategist. With the outbreak of the war, following the assassination of Austria's Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sofie, Max was sent to the Eastern Front in the fight against Russia.

Russian General Samsanov

He developed the strategy to focus the German attack on General Aleksandr Vassilievich Samsonov's Second Army. He remembered during the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, fellow commander General Rennenkampf had failed to aid Samsanov during a ferocious attack by the Japanese: Rennenkampf  only worried about the tactical situation and the preservation of his own troops and himself. He lacked the insight and the intelligence to appreciate the strategic situation and that led to disaster and the eventual defeat of Russia in that war.

Colonel Max Hoffmann

Colonel Hoffmann predicted that, when faced with a German counterattack at Allenstein(conveniently and incorrectly called Tannenberg as redemption for the defeat Prussia experienced in a war with Duchy of Lithuania and Bohemia in 1410) which specifically targeted General  Samsanov's Second Army, General Rennekampf would not come to his aid, just as he had 10 years before. And he was right, General Samsanov's army was surrounded and wiped out, never receiving any help from General Rennekampf. With no hope, General Samsanov committed suicide.
Months later, Max Hoffman was promoted to General and given operational command of German Forces on the Eastern Front. He led a spectacular attack on the Russian Army in mid-summer 1917.  Ironically, immediately before the attack, he had sent six divisions of his forces to the stalemated Western Front to reinforce the Kaiser's forces in France, which were under the command of his former commanders Field Marshalls Hindenburg and Ludendorff. Within a few days, forces under his command decimated the enemy causing the fall of Alexander Kerensky and his revolutionary Government.
Possibly the most successful officer in the German Imperial Army, Hoffmann chaffed at superiors taking credit for his tactical and strategic decisions. After the war everyone remembered Hindenburg who went on to be President of Germany, though he had been defeated by Marshall Joffre and the Allies on the Western Front.  No one remembers, Colonel Max Hoffman probably the most brillaint officer in World War I.  That is not right.

My 20th Birthday, Dr. Jackie Boles and Georgia State University.

I will never forget my 20th birthday. I was in a large classroom at Georgia State University and walked into Sociology class. Dr. Jackie Boles was late and everyone started talking to kill time. Suddenly everyone turned around and I saw she had a cake in her hands and was singing Happy Birthday! I thought it was very odd, but even odder because it September 18th, my birthday. I had a lot of great professors at Georgia State University.
Dr. Joe Baylen was Chairman of the History Department at Georgia State University. I was lucky enough to have him for a British History course my freshman year. He would always stay after class and talk to his students as equals. That was a wonderful and unique experience. Dr. Baylen said that history was as much about why, as it was about what, and we should always remember that. I remember, that he thought I was somewhat naive about what people were really like. He gave me a copy of the English underground "story" collection "The Pearl". Victorians were a lot less Victorian, than we might think, but much more hypocritical.  He told me that British History was  about Edmund Burke and Winston Churchill, but it was also Oliver Cromwell and "The Pearl".  Remember Magna Carta, but remember Cromwell's genocidal massacre at Drogheda and the  Amritsar massacre where over a 1,000 peaceful demonstrators were attacked by British Imperial Troops in India in 1919.  
Dr. Baylen's Obituary:
http://www.historians.org/perspectives/issues/2009/0910/0910mem1.cfm
Dr. John Alexander(Johns Hopkins) of the History Department who invited me to go on an archeological expedition with him to Potideia Greece while I was an undergraduate. If I only had the money. I also remember that he graded my last under graduate paper and gave me and A+. He loved History and it was contagious.
Dr. Mike Mescon Chairman of the Management Department, who was and is the most dynamic professor/teacher I have ever met.  He and his enthusiasm greatly tempted me to change my major to business. I was the mailman for his department, but he took time to talk with me because he loved being a teacher and it showed.
Dr. Paul Johnson, History Department, he treated interested students like colleagues. I remember that he had met Kurt Schuschnigg, the Austrian Chancellor who was bullied in person by Adolf Hitler and presided over Austrian unification with Germany: Anschluss. Nicholas II of Russia was very often an ineffective ruler, but with President Teddy Roosevelt the driving force in the Geneva and Hague Conventions. Trying to bring civilization to the rules of war and warfare.  He made history real, by talking about real people who they really were and why they did things.
President Dr. Noah Langdale was what a college president should be. I delivered his mail and he remembered my name. I remember every year he would go down to the Georgia Legislature and fight to hold down tuition and other costs for HIS Students, because his students worked their way through school and he was there to help them finish that task. I remember that he fought to keep our B and D Cafeteria because they served home cooking. Most of us worked full time and didn't have the luxury of home cooked meals. As soon as Dr. Langdale retired after 30 years as President, "they" brought in fast food because they didn't give a damn. One more note about Jackie Boles, she was a force of nature in the classroom. If I knew anyone who was bored, faltering or burned out and in danger of not continuing their education, I would tell them to take a course from Jackie Boles. She made education fun, and, believe it or not you learned something. Sometimes you learned a great deal, one of the great teachers who not only encouraged question,  but answered them enthusiastically. All of these teachers were great educators and great friends.

Chris McCandless's Letter to Russell Fritz

Happiness is only real when shared!

Russ,
I really enjoy all the help you have given me and the times we spent together. I hope that yo will not be too depressed by our parting. It may be a very long time before we see each other again. But providing that I get through ths Alaskan Deal in one piece you will be hearing form me again in the future. I’d like to repeat the advice I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing or been to hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one piece of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. If you want to get more out of life, Ron, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to sch a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty. And so, Russ, in short, get out of Salton City and hit the Road. I guarantee you will be very glad you did. But I fear that you will ignore my advice. You think I am stubborn, but you are even more stubborn than me. You had a wonderful chance on your drive back to see one of the greatest sights on earth, the Grand Canyon, something every American should see at least once in his life. But for some reason incomprehensible to me you wanted nothing but to bolt for home as quickly as possible, right back to the same situation which you see day after day after day. I fear you will follow this same inclination in the future and thus fail to discover all the wonderful things that God has placed around us to discover. Don’t settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon. You are still going to live a long time, Russ, and it would be a shame if you did not take the opportunity to revolutionize your life and move into an entirely new realm of experience.

You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living.

My point is that you do not need me or anyone else around to bring this kind of light in your life. It is simply waiting out there for you to grasp it, and all you have to do is reach for it. The only person you are fighting is yourself and your stubbornness to engage in new circumstances.

Russ, I really hope that as soon as you can you will get out of Salton City, put a little camper on the back of your pickup, and start seeing some of the great work that God has done here in the American West. you will see things and meet people and there is much to learn from them. And you must do it economy style, no motels, do your own cooking, as a general rule spend as little as possible and you will enjoy it much more immensely. I hope that the next time I see you, you will be a new man with a vast array of new adventures and experiences behind you. Don’t hesitate or allow yourself to make excuses. Just get out and do it. Just get out and do it. You will be very, very glad that you did.

Take care Russ,

Alex

The real Russell Fritz, a friend who believed in Chris and treasure his friendship

Happiness is only real when it is shared. Chris McCandless 

 

http://www.backtothewildbook.org/summary.html

ID found on Chris inside the bus

 

The best book about Chris, his words and his pictures.

A Photo of Chris immediately before he began his great adventure. Chris filled the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds of distance run.

Chris and his best friend, his sister.

 

 

If you ever wondered why Chris meant so much to Russ. This happened to Russ right before he met Chris:

 

Accused Killer of Wife Failed to Report Her Missing, Court Is Told

December 18, 1991|TOM GORMAN | Los Angeles TIMES STAFF WRITER

 

A man accused of killing his estranged wife and dumping her body over the side of a cliff near Borrego Springs showed little concern over his wife's safety when she was missing, the victim's sister testified Tuesday.

June Edwards, who lived in an apartment unit adjoining her sister's, testified at a preliminary hearing that, while family and friends searched for Grace Burrus, the victim's husband, John Burrus, went shopping for clothes so he could fly to Alaska to check on apartments he owns there.

Russell Fritz, a caretaker for apartments that John Burrus owns at Salton City, testified that, when he asked his boss whether he had called authorities about his wife's disappearance, John Burrus said he hadn't.

The San Diego County district attorney's office alleges that John Burrus, now 69, killed his 75-year-old wife on the night of June 26, 1990, or early the next morning at her apartment in Oceanside, then put her body in her car, drove it toward Borrego Springs, and pushed it over the side of county highway S-22 on the Montezuma Grade.

 

 

The couple were within nine days of a divorce hearing, and prosecutors allege that the property settlement was the motive for the killing.

The defense claims that Grace and John Burrus had happily spent the night together, reconciled their differences, had drinks, and that each left Oceanside the next morning in separate cars for Salton City. Once there, John Burrus was going to leave his car and be driven back by his wife to the airport so he could fly to Anchorage to check on his apartments.

Grace Burrus either was killed when her car crashed over the side of the highway or was slain, defense attorney Herb Weston said.

According to testimony Tuesday, John Burrus drove to the Salton City apartments the morning of June 27 and asked Fritz, his caretaker, if he had seen Grace, because she had an hour or so head start on her husband. He hadn't, Fritz said, and John Burrus returned to Oceanside.

The next morning, Fritz testified, he called John Burrus to see what he had learned about his wife.

"I asked him if he called the authorities," Fritz said. "He said it wouldn't do any good to call because it hadn't been 24 hours."

Edwards said she first learned of her sister's disappearance the night of June 27, 1990, when Burrus returned from Salton City to Oceanside. She, not Burrus, called relatives to figure out what to do about Grace's disappearance, she said, "because I wanted to see some action. . . . He said he wasn't going to call anybody until after 8 o'clock the next morning because she had to be missing more than 24 hours before they'd do anything."

On the morning of June 28--at about the time Grace Burrus' nephew and niece had found her body--John Burrus asked Edwards to stay near the phone for news so he could go shopping, she said.

"He said he didn't have any luggage because it was all either in Alaska or at Salton City," she said.

Edwards testified that, although she normally heard her sister's voice or television in the evening in the adjoining apartment, it was quiet the night of June 26.

Overnight, she said, she heard more than one male voice--including one she assumed to be John Burrus'--coming from the adjacent apartment but didn't hear Grace's voice. Nor did she hear or see Grace the next morning, as she typically would, she said.

Much of Tuesday's testimony was focused on the clothing Grace Burrus normally would wear, including a bra and running shoes. When her body was found, she was braless and had on clog-type shoes.

 

 

Weston suggested outside the courtroom that Grace Burrus was somewhat drunk when she left her apartment that morning and didn't dress herself as she customarily would have.

Grace Burrus' nephew, Bill Edwards, said that, when he talked to John Burrus within hours of having found her body, Burrus had scratches that appeared fresh on the back of his neck and on his leg.

Weston criticized the prosecution for what he said was a lack of evidence against his client, and said a county grand jury last summer had refused to indict John Burrus on the same charge.

The preliminary hearing before Vista Municipal Judge Michael Harris is expected to conclude today.

 

 

After such a betrayal, Chris was probably the only person who could bring light back into his life. No wonder he wanted to adopt Chris. In memory of Russ Fritz a decent human being. Hopefully there is a Russ in your life too.

I never met Chris, but I like him and would have been honored to have had him as a friend. I have actually defended him. It amazes and horrifies me how many right-wingers hate him, call him a loser.  I am proud to have the honor to defend "my friend". 

Requiescat in Pace, pal!

Did you know that Billy the Kid was once a legally deputized officer of the Law? If not, here is the true story of Billy McCarty: http://briankeithohara.blogspot.com/2014/11/billy-kid-was-more-likely-to-kill-off.html

More incompetent than spy.

I was reading about Mata Hari. Apparently she was more of a dupe, than a conspirator or spy. It reminds me of Emile Zola and Captain Dreyfuss. Esterhazy was the actual spy(double agent)for whom Captain Dreyfuss was the perfect foil. Captain Dreyfuss is forever a symbol of right and wrong. And Emile Zola was the Archimedes of his time, a man who had convictions and was fearless in standing up for them. The fury that I feel that Esterhazy was allowed to flee to England after Emile Zola's campaign to free the innocent Dreyfuss grabbed the publics attention.

 

 

Mata Hari and her execution during World War I

 

 

Rick Young and Freedom

Bobby Kennedy once said that Freedom isn't what you allow yourself, it is what you allow the people who disagree with you.
Our friends determine who we are. My best friend in college was a Young Socialist named Rick Young. I liked him because he believed in things and had the courage of his convictions. We argued all the time and he kept my mind sharp because he made me defend what I believed in. He is the son of two decent people Sam Young, A Methodist Minister and Hymnal composer. A Professor of Church Music at Emory. Rick's Dad introduced me to Robert Shaw the Conductor of Atlanta Symphony. His Mom was Majorie Young, a wonderful thoughtful woman who didn't have to think about being a good mother, because she was born for the job. Anyone who met her knew that. We need more people like the Youngs in the world. I was lucky enough that they shared their world with me. If I show kindness to another it is in Thanks for the kindness you showed me.