As the old saying goes, there is no rest for the weary.  Several weeks ago, I took a much-needed vacation to a small hamlet on the Baja Peninsula.  That same region was awakened from its peaceful existence Monday by a series of 4 earthquakes of 5.0-magnitude or greater (the greatest being 6.9); they emanated from the narrow seaway between the Baja peninsula and Mexico’s mainland which reduced its chances of causing major damage, and they were felt as far away as San Diego and Phoenix.  I know firsthand how unsettled one can become from these temblors.  Let us be thankful these did not cause the destruction of those we reported earlier this year in Italy.

The kidnap and murder of 17 year old Lily Burk, daughter and only child of Southwestern University School of Law Adjunct Professor, Deborah Drooz, on the afternoon of July 26th casts a long shadow.  Lily was picking up some papers for her mother at the landmark Bullocks-Wilshire campus in Los Angeles.  When Lily approached her car, she was kidnapped by 50 year old parolee, Charlie Samuel.  Samuel, just hours before, received a pass to leave a drug rehabilitation facility.  Within minutes, surveillance cameras show him driving Lily’s Volvo away from the campus with her as a passenger.  The aim of this kidnapping was presumably to secure cash from an ATM. Footage taken at 3:35 p.m., about 30 minutes after she was abducted, shows Lily walking with Samuel up to a Union Bank on Second and San Pedro streets in Little Tokyo, where Lily tried, but failed, to extract money from an ATM using a credit card.  Deeply troubling to police and many others is the fact that the bank video shows people walking past them, and even shows a customer using the ATM as they both walk away.  Yet, through all this, Lily does not call out to them for Read More …