Frances Hagberg (Graham)

Dan I sent you a comment after seeing your article. Frankie

Paula Gordon

Reed,

All day I've been savoring your exceptional introduction to and appreciation or your brother Dwight. Your marriage of "elegy" to "eulogy" is truly outstanding.  Thank you for raising the bar for me in thinking about tributes.

Paula (nee Finke) Gordon

P.S.  Wish we had more than a passing acquaintance from college days. Clearly many of our values interlock. Thank you for YOUR life, well lived.

Ralph Shapira

I just posted on my classmate profile Chapter 6 of my autobio, "When I Got Filthy Rich."  It's not long and it's a pretty darn amazing story.

Reed Cosper

Thanks for positive comments.  It's good for the soul.  As an aside, as soon as I saw my "in memoriam" posted, I saw things I wanted to edit, and of course I was gripped by anxiety.  Alas.  So I made the edits and moved on.  I contemplate posting some not-quite-finished pieces (law-and-history related, sort of; don't know what to call them) perhps in serial form as done by Ralph , It seems that nothing I write is ever finished.

Paula Gordon

The SUBJECTs of your life are presciently important right now, Reed, so we can all be GLAD your writing is "never finished" -- much to anticipate!  Paula

Judith Klavans

Reed,

Reading your family story left me feeling so moved - no words will tell.  I am quietly sitting in the shade on a sunny day overlooking a lake in the Olympic National Park and I keep gazing out at the wilderness.  Reflecting on our lives and all our complexities.

Thank you for posting this for us all,

Judy

Richard Naidus

Having spent my career in an emergency room in downtown San Francisco I had daily exposure to mental illness.  When I walk through the Tenderloin (rarely) and watch the homeless, addicted, and mentally ill twitching, sleeping, soiling themselves on the streets the word that comes to mind is hopeless.  So after reading your superbly written eulogy for your brother I was gratified to hear not only of his success in managing his illness for such a long period of time but for becoming a useful creative member of society.  Life is filled with yin/yang stories and I was touched by Dwight's story which offered hope in this particularly depressing era when it is most needed.  I look forward to reading your future compositions.
 

Ann Rosen (Rhys)

Reed, reading your brother's eulogy took my breath away. 

Edward McKelvey

To Paul: Two questions regarding these sites. (1) will this one eventually phase out? (2) is there a way to migrate your profile from here to there instead of having to recreate the profile.  I'm guessing the answers to both are "no."

Paula Gordon

TIME SENSITIVE!

I have not purchased an EXXON/Mobile product since the cataclysmic EXXON Valdez horror in 1989. In 2003 -- when we were privileged to welcome Dr. Riki Ott to "The Paula Gordon Show" -- the vast scope of this calamity came into even sharper focus. <http://www.paulagordon.com/shows/ott/index.html>

NOW there is a vital UPDATING DOCUMENTARY - "The Cost of Silence" - (below) available to screen FOR FREE until midnight tomorrow/Sunday/July 30th. And paying for viewing is also recommended!

Yours with the 2nd CONSECUTIVE "heat dome" in the Pacific NorthWest amping up my sense of URGENCY!!  Paula
 

Free Screening of “The Cost of Silence” Documentary Available to stream online anytime July 29, 30 and 31st.  Click Here to Stream   Secretly filmed over 9 years, Mark, an oil industry insider, exposes the devastating human health consequences of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill and subsequent cover-up.  Why the fuss now? The film is being screened as a fundraiser for Susan Wind's SAFE Protest EPA march on D.C. on Sept. 20 — organized by moms of children with cancer, moms who are fed up with environmental pollution and are demanding action from EPA. The march is in-person, the film screening and panel are virtual.  Learn more about the march at this link: https://www.safeprotestepa.org/   About "The Cost of Silence"   Filmmaker Mark Manning met Riki Ott, a marine toxicologist, in Louisiana in the summer of 2010, when the BP Deepwater Horizon was still gushing oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The disaster would become the largest oil spill in the U.S. at 221 million gallons.   Over the next decade, Riki the scientist-activist and Mark the director continued to cross paths in Gulf Coast communities. Both independently reached the same conclusions, well before scientific studies confirmed the problem: thousands of people appeared to be sickened after exposure to oil and dispersants. The miracle ‘cure’ – dispersants did more harm than good. Both were committed to telling this story so that it wouldn’t happen again.   “The Cost of Silence” exposes the government’s and industry’s use of harmful chemical dispersants in oil spill response and the horrific human illnesses in the decade following the BP oil disaster.   The film has been nearly 10 years in the making — but so has the story of emerging chronic illnesses and rare cancers in the aftermath of the BP disaster response, a response in which the federal government authorized unprecedented amounts of toxic chemical dispersants. Now, it seems, the consequences are also unprecedented. www.alertproject.org

Ralph Shapira

I have just posted chapters 7-13 of my autobio on my classmate profile page.  They are much shorter than the earlier chapters.  There is more coming.  I will also add three photos of the house I describe in Chapter 9, "A California Countryplace," to the photo collection on my profile page.  THANK YOU SO MUCH to those who have read the work to date.  I very much appreciate the comments you've made; otherwise I'd have no idea anyone was paying attention.

Richard Zitrin

Wow! A most impressive output! Can't wait to read more.

Ralph, I assume you have this in mss form of one sort or another?

Ralph Shapira

Thanks for reading, Rich.  Hope you're finding it interesting and enjoyable.  Yes, it's written in MS Word then cut and pasted as comments on my profile page.

Reed Cosper

Ralph, I have read it all. The "father" story touched me. My eyes teared up so that I was weeping with you when the narrative got to your tears.

Ralph Shapira

Thanks, Reed.  It means a lot to know my story touched you.  Thank you for saying so.

Ralph Shapira

I just posted the final six chapters of my autobio, Chapters 14-19, on my classmate profile page.  Yes, it's finally finished.

I have laid myself bare in these pages; there's a great deal of highly personal and unflattering information in the work.  If anyone other than those who've already commented is reading, please send me a message on my profile page to let me know.  After all interested classmates finish reading it, I may delete the entire package in order to reclaim whatever remains of my privacy.

Ralph Shapira

GIBSON'S BAKERY NEWS:  I just learned, and report here for your information, that on August 30 the Ohio Supreme Court declined to hear Oberlin's appeal in the Gibson's Bakery case.  That means the Ohio Court of Appeals decision is the final outcome of the case -- OBERLIN COLLEGE MUST PAY THE GIBSONS $31.6 MILLION DOLLARS, comprised of $11.1 million in compensatory damages, $13.9 million in punitive damages, and $6.3 million for the Gibsons' attorney fees.  I don't know whether under Ohio law interest on the unpaid judgment is also due, nor to what extent Oberlin's insurance policies will pay part of the judgment.  But for certain at least the $13.9 million will have to come out of Oberlin's own pocket, because no insurer is liable for punitive damages awarded against its insured.

Edward McKelvey

Time to pay it and move on.  This should have happened years ago.

Richard Apling

I agree, and also it is time for the college to apologize to the family and supporters of Gibsons, which the administration apparently has not done.

Robert Dickinson

I hope the college has leaned something from this whole fiasco!  I think we all received very good acedemic educations at Oberlin, but the social education has always been poor.  Finally the poor performance of the School's staff has costs the College significantly and maybe the administration will be more focused on leading the school based on what's right and what is wrong social (and legal) behavior.  In my opinion this incident has set back the reputation of the school Nationally.   

Joel Hastings

I agree with my classmates in postings 151, 152 and 153 on the Gibson's fiasco.

Joel Hastings

Judith Klavans

I am saddened that the reputation of Oberlin where we were all afforded the privilege of a personalized and inspirational education has plummeted.

Judy

Paula Gordon

I am saddened that Free Speech lost the day.

Peter Griswold

Please correct me if I am wrong.  My recall of Oberlin's involvement in the incident at Gibson;s was: 1) to allow a sign urging a boycott of Gibson's to hang in a college building; 2) to refuse to buy Gibson's products for a period of time; and 3) to provide some modest support to the protestors.(photcopying, etc).  #1 the sign, seems to me an issue of free speech.  Do students have the right to post  a message on college properrty advocating an action that is legal?  Should the college have censored the message?  #2 seems to me a business decision.  Oberlin can contract with any business they choose to for whatever reason they have.  I's clearly not in the Colege's intersts to harm the relationship with the town, but that is a matter of public relations, not law.  For #3, I emphasize the word modest.  The Dean didn't recruit the students, or encourage them overtly through speech or action.  One can argue that Oberlin made a number of mistakes once the Gibson decided to sue, and in retrospect, apolgizing and settling early was the wisest course of action.   I have no legal experience, but it seems to me that the president and Board of Trustees are entitled to defend the College against a suit without that defense being perceived by a jury as an additional offense added onto the actions of the college leading up to and on the day of the protest.  What I can't get over is the size of the award!  Was Gibson's business hurt that badly to justify over $10 million in compensatory damages?  Were the actions of the college leading up to the protest and on the day of the protest so heinous to warrant the size of the punitive damages?  I believe the College was liable, but liable to that extent?  The award seems so out of proportion.   Sadly, I agree with my classmates who lamented the harm this had done to the College's reputation.  I believe that the repercussions from this loss will not go away in an easy or timely manner.    

Ralph Shapira

Anyone interested in the Gibson's Bakery story should read a September 1 article by Lori Gibson, who runs the bakery, in the New York Post.

https://nypost.com/2022/09/01/how-oberlins-slander-put-our-family-through-hell/?utm_source=email_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site%20buttons&utm_campaign=site%20buttons