Rose Rosetree > Recent Status Updates

In the later chapters, Ketanji is emphasizing her family, her elder daughter's graduation, etc.

Sweet! But I'm really reading this memoir to learn about her career, her triumphs.

Unabashedly, Ketanji plays the social game of pursuing a nomination as a federal judge.

No embarrasment, just the pragmatism of a very sweet, very spiritual person.

An inspiration!

Ketanji matter-of-factly, thoughtfully, describes how life unfolded for her immediate family, up until her older daughter's neurodiversity diagnosis - after so many years.

The tone of this writing astounds me with Ketanji's truth seeking, her unflinching honesty, and how fully she shares. The intent seems clear to me: Justice Jackson aims to be of service, in a natural way, wherever she goes.

How Ketanji keeps on going as her elder daughter's problems keep coming up!

How can she and Patrick stay so strong with all the pressures of their lives. Yet they do! So inspiring!

Another grace note, to me, was how President Obama personally commuted his sentence.

Karmic debt paid - as each of us must do repayments when evolving in this world. But how many lifetimes has it happened that a President or King or Emperor would intervene, once that karmic debt had been fully paid.

Food for thought, Goodreaders?

From my perspective, it was a spiritual grace note that this uncle lived in freedom for a year, having won, and also contributed indirectly to some modifications of the Three Strikes law, and mandatory sentencing.

To my ears, hearing this story through the audiobook, I thought it had RETURNING KARMA written all over it.

If you read that part of "Lovely One," you will see what I mean.

Wrapping up the story, Justice Jackson expressed regret that her uncle had only one year of freedom before passing away.

Her reaction is so understandable to me, yet my reaction was different.

The harsh sentence was commuted in the final batch of commutations signed by President Barack Obama, on his very last day in office, in 2016.

For an offence that would have merited a 10-year prison sentence, Ketanji's uncle had spent close to 30 years in prison. Once released, he lived for a year, dying in broken health, in his late 70s.

What an OMG story, calmly voiced by Ketanji. Her uncle, one of Ketanji's father's brothers, had been convicted and given life imprisonment in Florida, under the [cruel and possibly racist, imo] Three Strikes Law.

Ketanji did only what she could. But another attorney became aware of the case and volunteered to do pro bono work to help this nonviolent offender.

I love how Ketanji wrote about the need for America to live up to our ideals. Gideon's case, so eloquently presented (as quoted, in part) - and the outcome - inspired me as well.

By now, Ketanji is serving as a Public Defender.

It's a thrill to learn about her passion for this job, and her summary of Gideon's case, where he represented himself in a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court, and established the policy that public defenders must be supplied for indigent defenders like Gideon.

This must be the lowest point in Ketanji's life yet? Caring for her first child, with the neurodiversity wiring. Working full time - while seven months pregnant with her second child.

Meanwhile, her superstar husband Patrick, the hotshot surgeon, is missing-in-action as a husband and father. Oh, oh, ouchee!

With subdued indignation and without rage, or self-pity, Ketanji describes the racism she encountered at a large Boston law firm where she was hired after having clerked at the Supreme Court. Being Black and female, she was often treated as a secretary.

Even she quit after two years.

Ketanji's honesty and humanity shine out as she recounts her early months as a new mother, with all the pressures that descended upon her when she went back to work.

No self-pity, simply the truth.

Pregnant before she planned to get pregnant. Bad morning sickness too.

Lest anybody put Ketanji on a pedestal, assuming her life is charmed in every way.

No no! It's what she does with what she gets that makes her such a leader, such an inspiration.

How did Ketanji Brown Jackson wind up clerking for Supreme Court Justice Steven Breyer?

Nothing could have been easier. Though, for a work, she worked 12-hour days, 7 days a week.

So inspiring, what she has to say about clerking for him.

How fascinating, how Ketanjiand her mentor powered through making landmark disability law in just one year.

Thrilling!

Ketanji described her wedding to Patrick in lavish detail . . . and I loved every word.

Pausing for the wedding that Ketanji attended, one of many at that time in her life. While she and Patrick were engaged. :-)

Seated at the same table as Ketanji were Barack and Michelle Obama. How lovely to read about their meeting!

Yes, I finally have this book backto read. Soon I heard her describe, in detail, all that led up to Patrick's proposal.

Not for the first time reading this so-human memoir by a woman in Age of Awakening Enlightenment, I started by tearing up. Then made crying noises. And even sobbed.

So moving! Thank you so much for this writing, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

How fascinating is this admission from the author of "Cultish"?

Over the course of researching and writing this book, my understanding of the word has only become hazier and more fluid.

As she explains, I see what Amanda means. All her examples hit home.

Once again, I must return this fabulous biography to Libby. I look forward to finishing this masterwork after it becomes available again.

Washington's standards of excellence continue to be British. So many examples illustrate this, in Ron Chernow's balanced narration.

For instance, at Mount Vernon the retired General has stocked his land with British foxes along with American ones, even though that meant he had to curtail the presence of hounds. I gather the British foxes had learned to fear foxes from all the hunting.

Tonight I went to a party held at Mount Vernon. Hadn't been there for 30 years!

To stand on the land at Mount Vernon means so much more to me now, thanks to Ron Chernow's brilliant-and-compassionate book.

Between the end of the War of Independence and when he was installed as America's first president, George Washington went through financial hell.

Congress wouldn't given him a penny. Yet hoardes of people came to Mt. Vernon, ate at his expense, fed their horses on his land. He was in danger of going bankrupt. Couldn't have been worse! Brave George Washington.

It's a grace note, and funny, picturing him dancing the night away with the snazziest 22-year-olds who want to touch him, to "get a piece of him."

Ron Chernow has really outdone himself, painting a most vivid and stirring picture of George Washington resigning from the military, seeking to return to life at Mt. Vernon.

What a spectacle, Washington and the remaining soldiers signalizing that the War of Independence was finally concluded.

He hugged and kissed those soldiers. Most of them wept.

What a bond they forged!

The war is won, by now. Pretty much.

Congress still doesn't want to pay the debts to Washington's soliders. Just about everything military is a mess. And back to George's nightmare of a mother, she's elderly now, but just as energetic and wily as ever at doing all she can to make her son's life miserable.