CJR: What’s your favorite era of American history? Why?
PO: Revolutionary period. The fact that a group of people like our Founding Fathers could come together and accomplish what they did is amazing. It’s the only revolution by the group that had the most to lose. If we didn’t have the Revolution, their children would have been leaders in their community. They fought for a merit-based system and as a result one of the only Founding Fathers whose children continued to be leaders was John Adams, the rest of them disappeared. The rest of the kids really lost their legacy because of what their fathers did. The fact that these guys gave up everything, and spent years doing this. It was a losing battle, they didn’t expect to win and they gave everything for it. We would do well to take it into consideration. It’s the only revolution that ever held together because these guys had everything to lose.
CJR: Who is your all-time favorite military dictator?
PO: Alexander the Great, without question.
CJR: What do you to amuse yourself?
PO: History and involved in Friends of Historic Kingston, historic Senate House, daughter’s activities, softball, Brownies. Community volunteering.
CJR: Last book you read?
PO: On the Battle of Hastings. The Norman Conquest by Marc Morris.
CJR: Favorite Kingston lunch spots?
PO: Market Basket, Dominic’s, Rene’s Bistro.
CJR: Favorite football team?
PO: New York Giants.
CJR: What makes Kingston so awesome?
PO: I think the history is a very large part of it, it’s such a special place. So much has happened here, it has such a legacy. To be able to walk down the streets where so much happened is such a gift.
CJR: Ideal vacation?
PO: I would like to go to Alaska. I would like to go to the Ice Hotel, but I would like to go see the Iditarod in Alaska.
CJR: Verizon or AT&T?
PO: Verizon.
Paul O’Neill would do well to explain why an attorney such as himself is Commissioner of Jurors, as opposed to some visceral, community-minded sop with the politically correct religio-ethnic/demographic mix such as his predecessor, or some other putz from the community. I sat through his lecture on the history of the courthouse and the famous who once inhabited it(I use that phrase euphemistically, of course). I think really, he should deliver such a lecture in the Senate House, and let the jurors do what they have to do and the process do what it has to do, without suffering too much constipation from cases backing up as a result of his passion for history. There is a time and place for everything, and history class should not be a requirement for jury service. Neither, for that matter, was the videotape from his predecessor on the value of jury service from who was it…Mike Wallace or someone…necessary either. A simple recitation of the 23rd Psalm would have sufficed(if not have also reminded me of my father’s wake–now there’s enough fodder for a hundred shows on WGHHQ, and by the way whatever happened to Harry Browning…hmm…? Went the way of Mary Margaret McBride, did he?). Just my two cents.