So tomorrow I make the 13-hour trek to Florida to drop off the hound. It seems like there are a billion things to do before leaving for Georgia. For one, I have yet to find a place in Tbilisi. Our orginal plan has fallen through and so Tyson and I are scrambling to ensure that we are not living on the streets. I also have to finish a grant proposal in the next week and make arrangements to get my rent paid, etc. Most of this could be done today, but 1. I'm writing this blog instead, 2. I have commitments today that leave no time except between 6 and 7. I also have to do laundry today and pick up enough dog food for sebastian to survive for 6 weeks. To top it all off, I am hung over.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Monday, April 16, 2007
Tbilisi
In two weeks and 5 days I leave for Tbilisi, Georgia. There I will reside for approximately 5 and a half weeks. The goals of this trip are manifold. First I would like to get away to some place completely foreign to me. I need a taste of alienation. For some reason I have this idea that such an experience will stimulate productivity and I will be able to make considerable headway on my dissertation. The other reason for my inclination toward alienation is that Bloomington has become a bit small and distracting. Perhaps is my own lack of discipline, but I need to be somewhere without all the people, routines, and familiar places. Now, I will not be completely alone. I am going with my good friend Tyson, who will also be there to work. But Tyson is more a source of encouragement than he is a diversion.
I will arrive at 3am on May 7 and head directly to my flat and get to sleep. This will follow a 5 hour flight from Munich, which in turn follows a 15 hour layover. I suspect the first few days will be filled with sight seeing and sleeping and eating. We will celebrate my birthday with kinkhali, mukuzani wine, and khachapori. We will visit the embassy to register ourselves so that good ol' uncle Sam knows where we are. After the first few days things should calm down a bit and then I'll get to work (after my morning visit to the sulfur baths, of course). I don't know how often I will be able to post or send emails because we will not have internet access in the flat most likely. In the interest of being maximally informative to the greatest number of people, I will probably rely on this blog for updates and not email, especially since internet cafes usually charge by the time. So friends and my worried family should check back often.
In addition to seeing Tbilisi, we will visit the mountains in the north, particularly in Kazbegi, which is one of the last few areas in the north where tourism is safe. Here is a picture of Kazbegi
I found this picture on a travel blog, which you can find here. I enjoy reading those travel blogs and viewing the pictures of all these places that I'll soon be visiting.
Anyway, I don't have much else to write. It had been a while since my last post and I was a little excited about my upcoming trip, so here you go.
I will arrive at 3am on May 7 and head directly to my flat and get to sleep. This will follow a 5 hour flight from Munich, which in turn follows a 15 hour layover. I suspect the first few days will be filled with sight seeing and sleeping and eating. We will celebrate my birthday with kinkhali, mukuzani wine, and khachapori. We will visit the embassy to register ourselves so that good ol' uncle Sam knows where we are. After the first few days things should calm down a bit and then I'll get to work (after my morning visit to the sulfur baths, of course). I don't know how often I will be able to post or send emails because we will not have internet access in the flat most likely. In the interest of being maximally informative to the greatest number of people, I will probably rely on this blog for updates and not email, especially since internet cafes usually charge by the time. So friends and my worried family should check back often.
In addition to seeing Tbilisi, we will visit the mountains in the north, particularly in Kazbegi, which is one of the last few areas in the north where tourism is safe. Here is a picture of Kazbegi
I found this picture on a travel blog, which you can find here. I enjoy reading those travel blogs and viewing the pictures of all these places that I'll soon be visiting.
Anyway, I don't have much else to write. It had been a while since my last post and I was a little excited about my upcoming trip, so here you go.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Typhoid Fever, Anyone?
Hungry for a snack, I went foraging for yummies in my fridge. What should I find there but live attentuated typhoid. Anyone for dinner?
I will say this, however. My typhoid doesn't scare me nearly as much as what my roommate stores in the fridge. Observe:
I will say this, however. My typhoid doesn't scare me nearly as much as what my roommate stores in the fridge. Observe:
Sunday, March 11, 2007
To Amsterdam
Well, travel to Amsterdam has been nothing short of eventful. Let’s start at the beginning. With plenty of time to spare I arrived at the Indianapolis airport. Once boarded, the crew informed us that there was some auxiliary power issue, but that it should not create any problems. Just we were about to pull away from the gate, we were delayed an hour on the tarmac. Finally the captain came to his senses and permitted us to deplane. No more than 10 minutes later we reboarded the aircraft. The jet was small and the flight was nearly two hours to New York. Luckily I still had 1 hour to catch my flight to Amsterdam.
At 6:30pm I had a slice of pizza at the New York airport.
The plane to Amsterdam was nice and large. The bathrooms were spacious and I befriended a cognitive scientist from NYU. Dinner was served on the plane at about 7:30 pm (eastern time). One glass of wine and two zanax later, and I was flyin’ high above the Atlantic. Apparently, sometime during the past 8 years since my most recent transatlantic flight, they started charging for wine. $5 for one glass of Jacob’s Creek Shiraz-Cabernet. I slept very little on the 6ish hour flight over. 4 hours after dinner, breakfast was served. Within an hour we were on the ground.
With the aid of a travel agent, I found the train from the Amsterdam airport to the central public transportation station. It took me 20 minutes to purchase a tram ticket (strippenkaart) because, in part, I was using the wrong machine so I could not find the option to purchase the card. Finally I figured it out and headed out to where the trams stop outside the station. I was searching for tram 9, but it seemed never to come. At this point it was about 9am Amsterdam time and I was feeling a little punchy from lack of sleep. A little wandering around revealed that the tram 9 picks up passengers from the other side of the station. I got on the 9 and watched the stop board for my stop (Tropenmuseum) to appear. It never did and I found myself at the end of the line, alone on the tram. With justification, the tram operators were peeved. On the way back I got my stop. Following directions given to me by one of my hosts, I went south on Linneausstraat waiting to find my street Dapperstraat on the left (one or two streets). Dapperstraat never came. Finally I buckled and asked a local where Dapperstraat was. She pointed not up or down Linneausstraat, but across it. Turns out Mr. Borsboom, my academic contact here, did not mean by “1st or 2nd street on your left” that Dapperstraat crossed Linneausstraat. Rather, the two streets were parallel. Only after walking up and down Linneeausstraat for about a half hour did I figure this out (with the aid of a nice Amsterdamer). I arrive at the apartment, but the last name of my host is not on the buzzer box. It takes me 10 minutes to get up the nerve to randomly ring one of the buttons. Luckily for me it was the correct one. Apparently the label on the buzzer had fallen off. A friend of my host let me in, gave me the tour, and he was on his way. Hungry I set to the streets for a bite. At this point it had been 12 hours since the croissant they gave me on the plane. Few places were open and of the places that were open, not a word of English was to be found, not even at McDonald’s (which, by the way, looks infinitely better than American McDonalds. Frustrated I returned to the apartment hungry to await the arrival of my host who has been away in Austria on a skiing trip. It is now nearly 9:15 pm Amsterdam time and still nothing to eat. Something tells me that by the time he gets here, it will be too late to get dinner. I did manage a 3-hour nap, which helped with the jetlag. There are at least two wireless networks that I’m picking up, but unfortunately both are password protected, so it might be some time before I get to post this.
Tomorrow at noon I have lunch with Denny Borsboom, so eventually I will eat something.
At 6:30pm I had a slice of pizza at the New York airport.
The plane to Amsterdam was nice and large. The bathrooms were spacious and I befriended a cognitive scientist from NYU. Dinner was served on the plane at about 7:30 pm (eastern time). One glass of wine and two zanax later, and I was flyin’ high above the Atlantic. Apparently, sometime during the past 8 years since my most recent transatlantic flight, they started charging for wine. $5 for one glass of Jacob’s Creek Shiraz-Cabernet. I slept very little on the 6ish hour flight over. 4 hours after dinner, breakfast was served. Within an hour we were on the ground.
With the aid of a travel agent, I found the train from the Amsterdam airport to the central public transportation station. It took me 20 minutes to purchase a tram ticket (strippenkaart) because, in part, I was using the wrong machine so I could not find the option to purchase the card. Finally I figured it out and headed out to where the trams stop outside the station. I was searching for tram 9, but it seemed never to come. At this point it was about 9am Amsterdam time and I was feeling a little punchy from lack of sleep. A little wandering around revealed that the tram 9 picks up passengers from the other side of the station. I got on the 9 and watched the stop board for my stop (Tropenmuseum) to appear. It never did and I found myself at the end of the line, alone on the tram. With justification, the tram operators were peeved. On the way back I got my stop. Following directions given to me by one of my hosts, I went south on Linneausstraat waiting to find my street Dapperstraat on the left (one or two streets). Dapperstraat never came. Finally I buckled and asked a local where Dapperstraat was. She pointed not up or down Linneausstraat, but across it. Turns out Mr. Borsboom, my academic contact here, did not mean by “1st or 2nd street on your left” that Dapperstraat crossed Linneausstraat. Rather, the two streets were parallel. Only after walking up and down Linneeausstraat for about a half hour did I figure this out (with the aid of a nice Amsterdamer). I arrive at the apartment, but the last name of my host is not on the buzzer box. It takes me 10 minutes to get up the nerve to randomly ring one of the buttons. Luckily for me it was the correct one. Apparently the label on the buzzer had fallen off. A friend of my host let me in, gave me the tour, and he was on his way. Hungry I set to the streets for a bite. At this point it had been 12 hours since the croissant they gave me on the plane. Few places were open and of the places that were open, not a word of English was to be found, not even at McDonald’s (which, by the way, looks infinitely better than American McDonalds. Frustrated I returned to the apartment hungry to await the arrival of my host who has been away in Austria on a skiing trip. It is now nearly 9:15 pm Amsterdam time and still nothing to eat. Something tells me that by the time he gets here, it will be too late to get dinner. I did manage a 3-hour nap, which helped with the jetlag. There are at least two wireless networks that I’m picking up, but unfortunately both are password protected, so it might be some time before I get to post this.
Tomorrow at noon I have lunch with Denny Borsboom, so eventually I will eat something.
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Flavors From My Childhood: Part 2
I now continue with Flavors from my Childhood, focusing on dishes from the mother. The mother has never been that interested in the culinary arts. She’ll tell you she hates cooking; however, she probably hated my attitude when my blood sugar would fall even more. The mother has a more traditional approach to cooking.
1. Tuna Casserole: This dish is a family favorite. Apparently my father hated this dish when he and my mother were together, but all the children loved it. This used to be my favorite mother-dish, but my preferences have gone the way of my father’s. This concoction consists of egg noodles, Velveeta, milk, canned tuna, and peas. When I ate this, I also liked to add hot pepper juice and lots of black pepper. May be the reason I liked it so much was that I never actually tasted it; I just liked the taste of pepper juice and black pepper. May be it is my disdain for milk and Velveeta, but I lost my taste for tuna casserole. It remains a favorite of my brothers.
2. Chicken and Dumplings: During the height of my tuna casserole craze, my older brother’s favorite dish was chicken and dumplings. This would probably rank among my current favorites, not just for the taste, but because I now have some idea of the labor that goes into it. Pressure cook one chicken (personally, I’d roast it), strip the meat off the bones, add meat, chicken stock, some other stuff, and uncooked biscuit dough, and voila. Dinnertime became tense when this dish was prepared. We were like ravenous soviet youths spying on each other, making sure that none of us was fishing for dumplings as we filled our bowls. Fishing was a huge faux pas in my mother’s house. Both she and my stepfather tended to prepare dishes that begged for fishing. Perhaps they were trying to teach us some lesson by putting the children in these awkward positions. We’d all sit down to the table and eye each other’s bowls, counting the number of dumplings to ourselves. About the labor: I roast chickens from time to time to make my own soup or chicken stock. I can tell you that a chicken retains its heat for a long time after cooking. You can let it sit a half hour and the thighs and breast will still threaten to burn off your fingerprints. Now, there is no way that my mother, an enemy of the kitchen, was going to spend any unnecessary time cooking, so I know that she did not let that bird cool before stripping it. I can’t help but think that she must harbor some resentment toward us for always wanting such a painful dish.
3. Breakfast: A favorite dinnertime mother-dish was breakfast. Who says that you can’t have the fattiest, tastiest meal at night? Biscuits and sausage gravy (the best part of which was being allowed to pop open the tube containing the biscuits), fried potatoes, chicken fried steak, eggs, etc., were common dinner fare. Oats and cream of wheat were personal favorites (see blog on oats below). It sounds so wrong, but it tasted so right. To this day I will still eat oats for dinner with a slice of slice of toast to scoop up the first few bites from the bowl.
4. Pot Roast: Again, here is a dish that remains a family favorite. I admit, there was a time when I did enjoy this dish, but it was not so much for the piece of meat that had been pressure cooked to hell as it was for the accoutrements: carrots and onions boiled in the beef water. I savored those grayish orange carrot spears and slurped up the translucent onion slivers as though they were from the kitchen of a 3-star Michelin restaurant. Gravy of a brown variety usually was used to drown this dish and reconstitute the beef.
5. Blueberry Cheesecake: A graham cracker crust, canned blueberries, and some Philadelphia cream cheese somehow conspired with my mother to create this dessert. Yet another crowd-pleaser.
6. Brownies and Blueberry Muffins: These are the best things my mother didn’t cook for me. She would leave a fraction of the batter uncooked for me because I preferred my brownies and muffins extra rare. I’d get the mixing bowl and beaters generously caked with tasty, gooey, doughiness. Who says the middle child is the most neglected?!
Meals at the mother-table were typically served with water or iced tea so sweet, you gulped it down as quickly as possible for fear that it might dissolve your teeth.
1. Tuna Casserole: This dish is a family favorite. Apparently my father hated this dish when he and my mother were together, but all the children loved it. This used to be my favorite mother-dish, but my preferences have gone the way of my father’s. This concoction consists of egg noodles, Velveeta, milk, canned tuna, and peas. When I ate this, I also liked to add hot pepper juice and lots of black pepper. May be the reason I liked it so much was that I never actually tasted it; I just liked the taste of pepper juice and black pepper. May be it is my disdain for milk and Velveeta, but I lost my taste for tuna casserole. It remains a favorite of my brothers.
2. Chicken and Dumplings: During the height of my tuna casserole craze, my older brother’s favorite dish was chicken and dumplings. This would probably rank among my current favorites, not just for the taste, but because I now have some idea of the labor that goes into it. Pressure cook one chicken (personally, I’d roast it), strip the meat off the bones, add meat, chicken stock, some other stuff, and uncooked biscuit dough, and voila. Dinnertime became tense when this dish was prepared. We were like ravenous soviet youths spying on each other, making sure that none of us was fishing for dumplings as we filled our bowls. Fishing was a huge faux pas in my mother’s house. Both she and my stepfather tended to prepare dishes that begged for fishing. Perhaps they were trying to teach us some lesson by putting the children in these awkward positions. We’d all sit down to the table and eye each other’s bowls, counting the number of dumplings to ourselves. About the labor: I roast chickens from time to time to make my own soup or chicken stock. I can tell you that a chicken retains its heat for a long time after cooking. You can let it sit a half hour and the thighs and breast will still threaten to burn off your fingerprints. Now, there is no way that my mother, an enemy of the kitchen, was going to spend any unnecessary time cooking, so I know that she did not let that bird cool before stripping it. I can’t help but think that she must harbor some resentment toward us for always wanting such a painful dish.
3. Breakfast: A favorite dinnertime mother-dish was breakfast. Who says that you can’t have the fattiest, tastiest meal at night? Biscuits and sausage gravy (the best part of which was being allowed to pop open the tube containing the biscuits), fried potatoes, chicken fried steak, eggs, etc., were common dinner fare. Oats and cream of wheat were personal favorites (see blog on oats below). It sounds so wrong, but it tasted so right. To this day I will still eat oats for dinner with a slice of slice of toast to scoop up the first few bites from the bowl.
4. Pot Roast: Again, here is a dish that remains a family favorite. I admit, there was a time when I did enjoy this dish, but it was not so much for the piece of meat that had been pressure cooked to hell as it was for the accoutrements: carrots and onions boiled in the beef water. I savored those grayish orange carrot spears and slurped up the translucent onion slivers as though they were from the kitchen of a 3-star Michelin restaurant. Gravy of a brown variety usually was used to drown this dish and reconstitute the beef.
5. Blueberry Cheesecake: A graham cracker crust, canned blueberries, and some Philadelphia cream cheese somehow conspired with my mother to create this dessert. Yet another crowd-pleaser.
6. Brownies and Blueberry Muffins: These are the best things my mother didn’t cook for me. She would leave a fraction of the batter uncooked for me because I preferred my brownies and muffins extra rare. I’d get the mixing bowl and beaters generously caked with tasty, gooey, doughiness. Who says the middle child is the most neglected?!
Meals at the mother-table were typically served with water or iced tea so sweet, you gulped it down as quickly as possible for fear that it might dissolve your teeth.
Friday, February 16, 2007
Flavors From My Childhood: Part 1
My recent entry on oats has made me want to recount other memorable comestibles from my early years. Being a child of divorce, I was exposed to a diverse array of dishes. I will not include in my selection dishes that I got at restaurants. There are many of those, seeing as I was raised mostly by a single father. I’ll divide things up into two categories: dishes from the father and dishes from the mother. In a later entry, I will cover dishes from the mother. The reader will note the astonishing difference in character between the two cooking styles.
Dishes from the Father (in no particular order):
1. Super _____: Prefixing the title of any dish with the adjective ‘super’ meant that whatever food was denoted by the term filling the blank was probably covered in Wolf Brand Chili and shredded cheese. The most often served “super” dishes were Super Chili and Super Hot Dogs. I grew up in Oklahoma where it is customary to cover everything with chili. How I miss the chili cheese burgers at Goldie’s in Tulsa.
Super Chili was a bowl of Wolf Brand Chili (no beans) covered with melted, shredded, yellow cheese. Adding to the super character of this dish was the layer of crushed crackers at the bottom of the bowl. Seeing as it was the crackers that got the chili and cheese, This dish would be more aptly titled “Super Crackers”. Sometimes slices of cheese were embedded in the chili, which was nice. You’d get a spoonful of chili and find a huge, thick glob of melted cheese. Super Chili, while filling, is not a particularly exciting dish.
Now, it was special time when it was Super Hot Dog night. Imagine two plump franks, usually microwaved, atop a buttered and toasted open-faced hot dog bun. Slather them in Wolf Brand Chili (no beans) and melted shredded yellow cheese and what you have is nothing short of a heart attack masquerading as perfection. People laugh when I tell them about this delicacy, but it is a culinary feat no Oklahoman can pass up.
2. Mexican Squash: I don’t know what this was, but it seemed that no matter how many times I told my father I hated squash, he continued to serve it.
3. Strange Macaroni Dish (SMD): I cannot recall the exact name for this dish, though it did have one. Now, mind you, this will sound a bit disgusting, but I ate it up like there was no tomorrow. This treat consisted of usually overcooked noodles (kids don’t like it al dente), melted Velveeta (note, Velveeta is NOT a cheese), and Hunt’s tomato paste. The acidity of the tomato nicely balanced with the Velveeta, often sending me back for seconds. SMD was typically a side dish.
4. Spaghetti: Now my father will tell you that his spaghetti is from some family recipe, but don’t believe it. Spaghetti nights were very frequent until the Hasty Bake smoker joined the family and steaks became regular fare. Here’s how you make the father’s spaghetti: go to the grocery store, get some ground round (preferably frozen, if not, then you have to freeze prior to preparation), one of those green boxes of Kraft spaghetti mix, take it home and follow the directions pretty much, except brown the meat (while it is still frozen). Follow the directions for making the sauce, but do it in the same pan as the browned beef. Serve with the noodles that come included in the green box (which I loved to eat raw), cover in melted shredded yellow cheese (not Velveeta), and enjoy. I never complained about spaghetti night, especially if there was a lot of cheese involved.
5. Steak night: As mentioned before, my father acquired a large Hasty Bake smoker/grill. Dinner was never the same, but it, strangely, never differed. Let me explain. I conjecture that at some point my father got a significant promotion, as the Hamburger Helper meals became less frequent and steak dinners became the typical weekend night fixins. And there was the Hasty Bake. Steak night, as I remember it, usually consisted of a giant filet mignon wrapped in bacon and smoked with apple wood or cherry. The dish was a tasty, albeit bloody, mess. A baked potato (which became stained pink with blood by the time you finished your meat) usually accompanied the steak and some steamed vegetable, most often asparagus, brussel sprouts, or broccoli. Through these dinners I learned to love veggies that most kids would slip to the dog under the table.
I’ll add, lastly, that all dishes were served with a cup of water, on green plates.
Dishes from the Father (in no particular order):
1. Super _____: Prefixing the title of any dish with the adjective ‘super’ meant that whatever food was denoted by the term filling the blank was probably covered in Wolf Brand Chili and shredded cheese. The most often served “super” dishes were Super Chili and Super Hot Dogs. I grew up in Oklahoma where it is customary to cover everything with chili. How I miss the chili cheese burgers at Goldie’s in Tulsa.
Super Chili was a bowl of Wolf Brand Chili (no beans) covered with melted, shredded, yellow cheese. Adding to the super character of this dish was the layer of crushed crackers at the bottom of the bowl. Seeing as it was the crackers that got the chili and cheese, This dish would be more aptly titled “Super Crackers”. Sometimes slices of cheese were embedded in the chili, which was nice. You’d get a spoonful of chili and find a huge, thick glob of melted cheese. Super Chili, while filling, is not a particularly exciting dish.
Now, it was special time when it was Super Hot Dog night. Imagine two plump franks, usually microwaved, atop a buttered and toasted open-faced hot dog bun. Slather them in Wolf Brand Chili (no beans) and melted shredded yellow cheese and what you have is nothing short of a heart attack masquerading as perfection. People laugh when I tell them about this delicacy, but it is a culinary feat no Oklahoman can pass up.
2. Mexican Squash: I don’t know what this was, but it seemed that no matter how many times I told my father I hated squash, he continued to serve it.
3. Strange Macaroni Dish (SMD): I cannot recall the exact name for this dish, though it did have one. Now, mind you, this will sound a bit disgusting, but I ate it up like there was no tomorrow. This treat consisted of usually overcooked noodles (kids don’t like it al dente), melted Velveeta (note, Velveeta is NOT a cheese), and Hunt’s tomato paste. The acidity of the tomato nicely balanced with the Velveeta, often sending me back for seconds. SMD was typically a side dish.
4. Spaghetti: Now my father will tell you that his spaghetti is from some family recipe, but don’t believe it. Spaghetti nights were very frequent until the Hasty Bake smoker joined the family and steaks became regular fare. Here’s how you make the father’s spaghetti: go to the grocery store, get some ground round (preferably frozen, if not, then you have to freeze prior to preparation), one of those green boxes of Kraft spaghetti mix, take it home and follow the directions pretty much, except brown the meat (while it is still frozen). Follow the directions for making the sauce, but do it in the same pan as the browned beef. Serve with the noodles that come included in the green box (which I loved to eat raw), cover in melted shredded yellow cheese (not Velveeta), and enjoy. I never complained about spaghetti night, especially if there was a lot of cheese involved.
5. Steak night: As mentioned before, my father acquired a large Hasty Bake smoker/grill. Dinner was never the same, but it, strangely, never differed. Let me explain. I conjecture that at some point my father got a significant promotion, as the Hamburger Helper meals became less frequent and steak dinners became the typical weekend night fixins. And there was the Hasty Bake. Steak night, as I remember it, usually consisted of a giant filet mignon wrapped in bacon and smoked with apple wood or cherry. The dish was a tasty, albeit bloody, mess. A baked potato (which became stained pink with blood by the time you finished your meat) usually accompanied the steak and some steamed vegetable, most often asparagus, brussel sprouts, or broccoli. Through these dinners I learned to love veggies that most kids would slip to the dog under the table.
I’ll add, lastly, that all dishes were served with a cup of water, on green plates.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Injustice
I'm not much on posting activism blogs, but a very timely dream last night about my friend Janet Danahey made me want to scribble down a little something. It has been 5 years since Janet was locked away.
Her sentence: life without parole.
Her conviction: 4 counts of first degree murder.
I will post a link, for those of you who are interested in reading about the story, so I'll not go into the details. The skinny of it is that she played a prank that got out of hand. She ignited a box of christmas decorations and a futon on the patio of an ex-bf's apartment early in the morning on Feb 15, 2002. The fire got out of hand and the entire apartment building burned. 4 young people died. Because of North Carolina's Felony Murder Rule, according to which if someone dies while you are in the act of committing a felony (in this case, arson), then you are automatically charged with 1st degree murder for the death of the person, Janet was convicted of 4 counts of first degree murder.
The Felony Murder Rule ties the hands of judges who might otherwise attend to particular facts about the case, e.g., that the deaths were *not* premeditated, that Janet was a university graduate who was active in the community, etc.
Recently there was a similar case at Seton Hall University where two undergraduates, also playing a stupid prank, set a fire that got out of hand. 3 people died. 1 was badly burned. I should also add that there is a Felony Murder Rule in New Jersey, where Seton Hall University is located.
Their sentence: 5 years a piece with possibility of parole in 16 months.
Their conviction: arson (murder charges were dropped)
Whose sentence is unjust? Whose conviction is the appropriate one? Are either just or appropriate? Should not comparable wrongdoings receive comparable punishment? Janet is no more of a murderer than these two men. Granted, 16 months seems a bit on the lean side of a sentence, but life without parole for someone who is a first-time offender and who did not intend to harm anyone seems especially egregious.
Janet's Case
Seton Hall Case
Her sentence: life without parole.
Her conviction: 4 counts of first degree murder.
I will post a link, for those of you who are interested in reading about the story, so I'll not go into the details. The skinny of it is that she played a prank that got out of hand. She ignited a box of christmas decorations and a futon on the patio of an ex-bf's apartment early in the morning on Feb 15, 2002. The fire got out of hand and the entire apartment building burned. 4 young people died. Because of North Carolina's Felony Murder Rule, according to which if someone dies while you are in the act of committing a felony (in this case, arson), then you are automatically charged with 1st degree murder for the death of the person, Janet was convicted of 4 counts of first degree murder.
The Felony Murder Rule ties the hands of judges who might otherwise attend to particular facts about the case, e.g., that the deaths were *not* premeditated, that Janet was a university graduate who was active in the community, etc.
Recently there was a similar case at Seton Hall University where two undergraduates, also playing a stupid prank, set a fire that got out of hand. 3 people died. 1 was badly burned. I should also add that there is a Felony Murder Rule in New Jersey, where Seton Hall University is located.
Their sentence: 5 years a piece with possibility of parole in 16 months.
Their conviction: arson (murder charges were dropped)
Whose sentence is unjust? Whose conviction is the appropriate one? Are either just or appropriate? Should not comparable wrongdoings receive comparable punishment? Janet is no more of a murderer than these two men. Granted, 16 months seems a bit on the lean side of a sentence, but life without parole for someone who is a first-time offender and who did not intend to harm anyone seems especially egregious.
Janet's Case
Seton Hall Case
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
