As the days of social distancing become weeks, some have turned to poetry to cope with such strange times. OPB spoke with a few Oregon poets to hear what they are writing about right now.

California Rep. Doris Matsui discusses what did and didn’t work in COVID-19 relief packages. The Greater Sacramento Economic Council on the region’s potential for recovery, and poet Amanda Harrinauth on finding joy in every day.

The Poetry Olympics Is A Brand-New Initiative Created To Encourage, Inspire And Empower Writers Of Every Style And On Every Level.

Oh what has happened, my darling little friend? I knew that it would happen, but I longed for us to never end. What shall I do without you? What shall

Death is in air The death of an old white horse His name; Donny His death was tragic to me How loved could he be How much I loved my Donny With his

I remember you were sick, And yet I had to go. I wasn't there to watch you die, That pain, I hope, I'll never know. So I never got to say goodbye, I

Sage Today I sit alone and cry, Without you by my side. Of all the times I've said goodbye, This one made me cry. If there was anything I could have done,

I find it hard to express my feelings, And say how much you meant to us, This poem is just another poor attempt, I’m being such a wuss! I can’t remember

For years, the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office in Louisiana issued fake subpoenas to witnesses and crime victims. Unlike subpoenas used in ongoing prosecutions, these were used during the investigation process to compel targets to talk to law enforcement. They weren't signed by judges or issued by court clerks but they did state in bold letters across the top that "A FINE AND IMPRISONMENT MAY BE OPPOSED FOR FAILURE TO OBEY THIS NOTICE."

Recipients of these bogus subpoenas sued the DA's office. In early 2019, a federal court refused to grant absolute immunity to the DA's office for its use of fake subpoenas to compel cooperation from witnesses. The court pointed out that issuing its own subpoenas containing threats of imprisonment bypassed an entire branch of the government to give the DA's office power it was never supposed to have.

Allegations that the Individual Defendants purported to subpoena witnesses without court approval, therefore, describe more than a mere procedural error or expansion of authority. Rather, they describe the usurpation of the power of another branch of government.

The court stated that extending immunity would be a judicial blessing of this practice, rather than a deterrent against continued abuse by the DA's office.

The DA's office appealed. The Fifth Circuit Appeals Court took the case, but it seemed very unimpressed by the office's assertions. Here's how it responded during oral arguments earlier this year:

“Threat of incarceration with no valid premise?” Judge Jennifer Elrod said at one point during arguments. She later drew laughter from some in the audience when she said, “This argument is fascinating.”

“These are pretty serious assertions of authority they did not have,” said Judge Leslie Southwick, who heard arguments with Elrod and Judge Catharina Haynes.

The Appeals Court has released its ruling [PDF] and it will allow the lawsuit to proceed. The DA's office has now been denied immunity twice. Absolute immunity shields almost every action taken by prosecutors during court proceedings. But these fake subpoenas were sent to witnesses whom prosecutors seemingly had no interest in ever having testify in court. This key difference means prosecutors will have to face the state law claims brought by the plaintiffs.

Based upon the pleadings before us at this time, it could be concluded that Defendants’ creation and use of the fake subpoenas was not “intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process,” but rather fell into the category of “those investigatory functions that do not relate to an advocate’s preparation for the initiation of a prosecution or for judicial proceedings.” See Hoog-Watson v. Guadalupe Cty., 591 F.3d 431, 438 (5th Cir. 2009)

[...]

Defendants were not attempting to control witness testimony during a break in judicial proceedings. Instead, they allegedly used fake subpoenas in an attempt to pressure crime victims and witnesses to meet with them privately at the Office and share information outside of court. Defendants never used the fake subpoenas to compel victims or witnesses to testify at trial. Such allegations are of investigative behavior that was not “intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process.”

Falling further outside the judicial process was the DA's office itself, which apparently felt the judicial system didn't need to be included in its subpoena efforts.

In using the fake subpoenas, Individual Defendants also allegedly intentionally avoided the judicial process that Louisiana law requires for obtaining subpoenas.

The case returns to the lower court where the DA's office will continue to face the state law claims it hoped it would be immune from. The Appeals Court doesn't say the office won't ultimately find some way to re-erect its absolute immunity shield, but at this point, it sees nothing on the record that says prosecutors should be excused from being held responsible for bypassing the judicial system to threaten crime victims and witnesses with jail time.

Here’s something I put up on Facebook (originally as a reply to someone else’s thing) in March that I should...

1. Remco Evenepoel: "Vandaag had een heel belangrijke dag moeten zijn"  sporza.be
2. Remco Evenepoel verkiest Giro boven Luik-Bastenaken-Luik | Wielrennen | Sport  Het Laatste Nieuws
3. Contador over 20 minuten-test Evenepoel: “Als die klopt, kan hij nu al de Giro winnen”  WielerFlits.be
4. Patrick Lefevere bevestigt dat Remco Evenepoel de Giro gaat rijden  Wielerkrant.be
5. Remco Evenepoel rijdt Giro in het najaar: "Intriest dat hij Luik niet kan rijden"  sporza.be
6. Hele verhaal bekijken via Google Nieuws

Besides being one of the stars of “The Booksellers,” Henry Wessells is also the proprietor of the micro-publisher, Temporary Culture. His latest booklet, “She Saved Us From World War Three,” brings together an interview, essay and two letters highlighting the friendship between Gardner Dozois, the longtime editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, and Alice Sheldon, the former Washington intelligence agent whose intense, sometimes feminist sci-fi — no one ever forgets “The Women Men Don’t See” — was written using the pseudonym James Tiptree Jr. In one letter Sheldon explains that she has pretty much stopped writing because “the stories were getting to hurt too much.”

Pillow pug!

Thomas Roche Jr., the Murray Professor of English, Emeritus, and a foremost expert in epic and Renaissance poetry, died May 3 after a long illness in Beachwood, Ohio. He was 89.

So this post will be a bit of a different one from the norm. I haven't done much poetry writing since I've been here but for some reason walking to school the other day I looked around and truly came to appreciate how gorgeous it is here in the fall. Next

Attorneys for UCLA and University of California want to block a subpoena request made Jorge Salcedo, an ex-soccer coach implicated in the admissions scandal.

Ernesto Cardenal, the poet and cleric who became a symbol of revolutionary verse throughout Latin America, died Sunday at a Managua hospital at 95.

If you're looking to stay entertained during coronavirus lockdown, reading poetry is a whole lot easier than baking bread.

A brilliant, mercurial and often rebellious poet and critic, would-be translator of Jorge Luis Borges and mentor to John Darnielle and many others.

IN THESE uncertain days of lockdown, I sense a strange inversion of intergenerational strife.

The Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission voted Thursday to subpoena L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva for testimony regarding the coronavirus outbreak in the jails.

Discover what it is like to fly Air Tahiti Nui Boeing Dreamliner in Poerava Business Class. I discuss and review the aircraft, layout, seats, food, drink, service and facilities on board. Find out of this airline and business class is a thumbs up or thumbs down from me.

Note: I received a discount off the full fare price of my Air Tahiti Business class flight from Paris to Papeete Tahiti. The airline had no input of the content or opinions expressed in my video.

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Gary Bembridge's Tips For Travellers aims to help you make more of your precious travel time and money on land and when cruising the oceans or rivers of the world. To help you, in every video I draw on my first-hand tips and advice from travelling every month for over 20 years and 60+ cruises.

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Congratulations to the 2020 AMS Math Poetry Contest Winners in the middle school, high school, and college categories: Sabrina Little, Mackintosh Academy, Boulder, for "Outlier;" Austen Mazenko, Cherry Creek High School, for "The Number Won; and Chenyu Lin, Colorado Christian University, for "x² + y² = 1(ife)." The poems were read during Mathemati-Con at the 2020 Joint Mathematics Meetings in Denver, CO. Read the poems and learn about the contest and Math and Poetry. (Photo: (left to right) Austen Mazenko, Sabrina Little, poetry contest judge Gizem Karaali, and Chenyu Lin.

IT IS said that every cloud has a silver lining, and that could still hold true, even in the midst of a terrifying global pandemic. Despite COVID-19, the cycle of life continues, and out of it has sprung forth an inspiring poetry competition,...

COVID-19 nightmare The poet in me lies dormant in this COVID-19 nightmare, So concerned am I, to ensure that I’m taking care Of my person, my property, my family, my friends, Making sure to tie up all loose ends! There’s food to buy, and...

Let’s have heart Let’s have heart And space ourselves Three feet apart Let’s act fast to bring this disease to its last Let’s have heart and play our part To do our best to turn the spread off Hand sanitizers Elbow coughs Masks and...

Commonwealth poetry (English) -- History and criticism.

London : printed for the Council by Spottiswoode, 1903.

London : Longmans, Green, 1872.

London : J. Churchill, 1864.

Harjo, a member of the Muskogee Creek Nation, says the appointment "honors the place of Native people in this country, the place of Native people’s poetry"

The 15th-century edition of Hafez's "Divan" will be sold at Sotheby's next month

Computerized provider order entry (CPOE) has been recognized to enhance the efficiency, safety, and quality of medical work. Yet vendors and organizations have not determined best practices for customizations, resulting in systems that have poor usability and unintended consequences of use.

This study demonstrated that systematically developed order sets reduce cognitive workload and order variation in the context of improved system usability and guideline adherence. The concept of cognitive workload reduction is novel in the setting of computer order entry. (Read the full article)

Preterm infants in the NICU receive the greatest number of transfusions of any patient population. The administration of the long-acting erythropoiesis stimulating agent (ESA) darbepoetin to reduce or eliminate transfusions in preterm infants has not been evaluated.

Infants receiving ESAs received half the number of transfusions and were exposed to approximately half the donors compared with the placebo group. More than half of the ESA recipients (59% darbepoetin recipients, 52% erythropoietin recipients) remained untransfused during their hospitalization. (Read the full article)

Although a number of randomized controlled trials of erythropoietin administration to preterm infants have been performed, few studies have reported 2-year or longer neurodevelopmental outcomes, and no studies have evaluated neurodevelopmental outcomes of infants randomized to receive Darbepoetin.

This is the first prospectively designed study to evaluate the neurocognitive outcomes of preterm infants randomized to receive Darbepoetin or erythropoietin compared with placebo. Infants in the ESA groups had significantly higher cognitive scores compared with the placebo group. (Read the full article)

Selected poems of Rachelle Bowser, Rachel Mennies, Erin Murphy and Eleanor Stanford have been chosen to represent the Pennsylvania Center for the Book’s 2020 Public Poetry Project, with poetry interpreted into art posters for the annual event.

THE DELAWARE DIVISION OF THE ARTS TO HOST ANNUAL POETRY OUT LOUD STATE FINAL COMPETITION Twelve students to compete to advance to the National Finals in DC Dover, Del. (February 14, 2018) – From a competitive field of 20 Delaware high school students, 12 remain to compete at the statewide recitation competition that will be […]

For Immediate Release  SAMUEL MCGARVEY TO REPRESENT DELAWARE IN 2018 POETRY OUT LOUD NATIONAL FINALS IN WASHINGTON Dover, Del. (February 28, 2018) – From a competitive field of 12 Delaware high school students, Samuel McGarvey, a sophomore from Tall Oaks Classical School, earned the title of 2018 Poetry Out Loud Delaware State Champion at the […]

Twenty students to compete to advance to National Finals in Washington, DC Dover, Del. (January 30, 2019) –The free recitation contest will start with a semi-final competition at Modern Maturity Center, Dover on Tuesday, February 5 at 7 p.m. This year’s semi-finals judges are: Jamie Brunson, Executive Director, First Person Arts, Philadelphia Sherry Gage Chappelle, […]