Thursday, September 15, 2016

You Can't Get Away With Anything. Yes, You.


We've been saying all along that you just cannot get away with anything in this day and age. And now there's hard proof of the matter.

The Daily Mail tells us that plucky archaeologists at the Museum of Silkeborg in the great nation of Denmark have discovered a pot, probably tossed out on a village rubbish tip or thrown down a privy.

But this is no ordinary pot, no sir.

In the bottom of the pot are the remains of a failed attempt at cheese making, so 'tis theorized. We can only assume that the cook, whoever it was, figured "out of sight, out of mind" was better than having to explain it to whatever Viking owned the house, and suffer the consequences of their bad disposition.

We've remarked on this concerning the ill disposition of the Vikings and the probable reasons for it which include tapeworms, roundworms, hookworms, liver flukes and a host of other nasty parasites that would not contribute to their general sang froid and equanimity.

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Update: State v. Joseph White Resentencing

We've talked at some length about the Drake Diner murders, and the untimely death of Cara McGrane and Tim Burnett, as well as the investigation that led to the  conviction and sentencing of Joe White.






Well, there was a new wrinkle recently.

It was found in Miller v. Alabama that a sentence of life without the possibility of parole for juveniles was unconstitutional, and in Montgomery v. Louisiana that the Miller decision was made retroactive, meaning that everyone who was sentenced to life without parole and was below the age of 18 deserved a new sentencing hearing and a sentence that allowed for the mere possibility of parole.

Joe White was, I believe, a month shy of his 18th birthday when he committed the crime that landed him in state and then federal prisons with in excess of 100 disciplinary infractions. Joe has also acquired an impressive set of tats while in the correctional system.

Needless to say he had his resentencing hearing a couple of weeks ago and he was brought back from the Big Sandy federal prison in Inez, Kentucky for the occasion and much addenda to the presentence investigation report. Remember he'd been convicted of two counts of murder in the first degree and a count of robbery in the first degree and sentenced to the statutory life without the possibility of parole plus 25 years on the robbery back in, I guess, 1993, all to run concurrently.

The court resentenced White to two life terms with the possibility of parole and twenty five years on the robbery charge, all to run consecutively, or, box cars, as the criminals call it.

Here's some of the back story

I wonder. What does he do with his time?


Monday, September 05, 2016

Themes for the New Millenium

I've often wondered about the advisability of adopting a theme for this blog. Ten years, after all, is a lot of wondering to do, but I think I have arrived at something of a crossroads.

Forget politics. I'm interested in things people can agree on and things that are liable to bring people closer together over common interests, and I think I may have it.

A drum roll, maestro.

The general drift, henceforth, will be good eating on a budget. That's not going to be exclusive, because I have too much other stuff on my mind right now. The upcoming election may figure large. Politics is, by and large, an unhealthy obsession.

As some of you know, I did the food stamp challenge last year to see whether I could get by on food stamps. The answer is decidedly affirmative, although it does require some forethought, skill improvement, and tooling to make the best use of the resources that are available to most folks.

So that is where I think we'll go. As newsworthy items cross my desk I'll be sure and make them part of the landscape here.The thinking is that if you and I find things in common that don't end up getting us all pissed at each other, it could be a model for talking about other things as well.

On the other hand there are some folks I know who just can't stay away from aggro politik, and perhaps they should avoid this little corner of the universe. At least for now.

The picture is of  Ettore Boiardi (1897-1985). This son of Piacenza in Italy is known for making canned food for folks on a budget, but he was much more than that. A restaurateur and an entrepreneur, he fed a lot of hungry GIs in Dad's war and was well known as an excellent chef.

You can read about him here.

This modest and unassuming man had much to teach us if we will but listen. So that's the direction I'm going in.

Stay tuned, and bon appetit.


Memo To Anonymous Annotators: Get Off My Damned Lawn

It was said one time by a person way smarter  than me that there is one thing in every person's makeup that really rings their bell, and not in a good way.

Actually, with me it's two things.

The first and most important is when you go to the grocery store and buy a loaf of bread and some dunce of a packer puts it in the bag with something really hefty that rolls around and smashes it. I really hate that.

I know it's unreasonable for me to be so overwrought about this subject but there you go.

No, what really irks the shit out of me is when I go to the library or Half Price Books, I pick something out, fork over the cash and head home for some good reading only to find that some idiot has annotated said book along the margins.

Aside from being unusually stupid, such anonymous annotations take all the fun and adventure out of a new fresh read.

Do these people think that their idiotic musings are that important that they gotta take all the fun out of it for me?

Well. There is an answer to it, although it requires a bit of work.

Thanks to the folks at Paper Mate, they still manufacture the "Pink Pearl" series of rubber erasers that'll put paid to anything scribbled in the margins of any book if it is done in pencil-as is usually the case.