Every so often, I fail miserably in my effort to be a good example for my children. One such occasion was on the way home from Uganda last week. An inspirational figure in my life is 104 year-old Herb Nootbaar. Herb and his dearly departed wife Elinor have generously endowed the law school’s Nootbaar Institute, […]
Burning the candle at both ends finally caught up with me. Tuesday was a day of meetings at the court and a farewell dinner with Justice K and the seven Pepperdine students working for the courts. By Tuesday night, I could tell I had contracted something Ugandan. Fortunately, Dr. Jay Gregston has four trunks full […]
In February of 2012, I made a promise to my oldest daughter Jessica. My intent was to fulfill that promise before we left Uganda in July of 2012. To my shame, I failed. On Monday, I finally made good, as I accompanied her (and Joline and the Gregstons) to work. About five years ago, my […]
Article 144 of Uganda’s Constitution requires members of the Supreme Court to retire upon reaching the age of 70. The Constitution also provides that the involuntarily retiring justices shall serve three additional months in order to finish their judgments and wrap up affairs. There are no exceptions and the retirements occur by operation of law. […]
On Wednesday, I had my first Kamp’ing’ experience in Uganda and did not like it at all. I loved camping as a kid. As an adult? Not so much. There is something about being the one responsible for setting up the tent that sours the entire experience. For the past three and a half years, […]
The team took Monday to catch its collective breath after running at full throttle for the prior ten days. The group that returned Sunday night from gorilla trekking on Saturday bubbled over when they described how cool the rare experience was of spending an hour hanging out with the mountain gorillas. The eight in our […]
As I have written about previously, I am definitely a hypergamist. I married up. Way up. Today (Sunday, June 16th), our 23rd anniversary, I was reminded of this one more time. Joline and Jessica are currently on a 10-day trip around southern Uganda with the Gregston family doing medical clinics in rural villages and won’t […]
Like the swarm of bees we have been since we arrived in Fort Portal, we established a hive in the breakfast room on Thursday morning. Flash drives earned their name by darting in and out of computers as the final summary briefs moved down the edit, proofread, print, collate, staple assembly line. By about 9:30 […]
The daily prayers blaring through the quad-directional loudspeakers at the local mosque called the faithful at 5:30 a.m. to arise and pray. We are already awake, thank you very much, but we appreciate the reminder to pray, albeit directed through an alternate mediator. And pray we did before we resumed the work at the prison. […]
As the East African sun rises in the West Ugandan town of Fort Portal on our third day of intense case preparation, it illuminates the finish line off in the distance. Adrenaline is supplementing sleep, though the former seems to be in much greater supply than the latter. Day Two started off early with most […]
