Light On A Slowly Turning Planet

Lost Little Big Friend

2010-02-28T22:34:00.003-05:00

This morning I found our Maine Coon, Winston, lying dead on his side. He had a heart problem that a lot of Maine Coons have, and since he wasn't sick before and I couldn't find any evidence of another cause of death, I think he died of heart failure or a blood clot somewhere important. I think he had a seizure when he died, but I don't think he suffered long, if at all.

He was a very friendly cat. He was rescued by the Humane Society as a kitten with about 40 other cats from a Maine Coon cattery when the woman who ran it became senile. He was sick, and the Humane Society was going to have to put him down because they couldn't handle 40 cats at once. A nice law student from Wake took him in to save him, and I adopted him from her. He came with a broken tail, which you couldn't see because of his fluffy tail.

When I was going to law school at Syracuse, I would often take Winston with me for company. Once, he thought he heard someone coming up the stairs to my apartment and he trotted toward the door, growling! I'd never had a guard cat before!

Owen, our orange-point Balinese, died of cancer last July. Now we have two cats left: Muphus and Farfel. Farfel seems to miss him, but Muphus, boss cat, doesn't seem to have noticed much.
Winston will be missed by me. Ta-ta, little big friend.

My OTHER Blogs

2010-01-15T13:35:00.002-05:00

So I have two other blogs - Light Planet on Tumblr and Kid Stuff Kritique, also on Tumblr. Kid Stuff Kritique contains my thoughts on baby and kid stuff so its content is easily separable; however, I'm having trouble figuring out when to post here and when to post to Light Planet. So I'm letting you know the other exists. And that I may just start posting everything there for simplicity. We'll see.

Cheers!

"Happy Husband"

2009-12-16T13:48:00.002-05:00

Just for the record, I am not simply a domestic woman, cooking for mere words of approval from my H. However, I enjoy cooking, and I enjoy making food H likes to eat. I am not a very discerning eater, and he sets a higher bar. I enjoy the challenge of trying to make food we both like that is also healthier and less expensive than going out. Thus, Happy Husband recipes. I hope they are Happy You recipes, too.

Hence the sharing.

Happy Husband Recipe #2 Mediterranean Lamb

2009-12-16T00:08:00.002-05:00

This one started from a cookbook I use often: Jeanne Jones' Healthy Cooking For People Who Don't Have Time To Cook. However, this is no 4-serving recipe as it purports to be. In fact, it wasn't quite big enough for just Dan and me. So I increased the amount of meat and other ingredients accordingly, and also changed some other details of the recipe. It's very good. I've only cooked lamb twice, and I've never actually liked it before.

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 pound leg of lamb, trimmed of fat and cut into 1" cubes
3/4 of a 28 ounce can of crushed tomatoes
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons dried rosemary, crushed
1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano, crushed
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon coarse ground black pepper
1/4 heaping teaspoon crushed red-pepper flakes

Directions:
Heat olive oil in a large skillet. Place over medium-high heat until the oil shimmers. Add the lamb and cook for 5 minutes, stirring often to avoid burning or sticking and to brown all sides.

Now add the rest of the ingredients. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 8 minutes, or until the lamb is fully cooked.

NOTES: This amount of cooking results in lamb that is not pink in the middle. Reduce cooking time for rarer meat.

Peas and couscous went very well with this dish, and the color combination was appealing as well.

Happy Husband Recipe #1 Apple-Merlot Pork Chops

2009-12-11T00:26:00.002-05:00

I've decided to make a collection of recipes that Dan really likes. Here's the first one. I made the brine up myself, and the rest is roughly from an old farmer recipe.

Ingredients:
6 cups water
2 individual-sized bottles of Turning Leaf Merlot (187mL each)
1/3 cup coarse sea salt
1/8 cup Herbs de Province
3 to 5 thick-cut pork chops, with or without the bone (Dan prefers the bone-in kind)
1 apple (I prefer red)
1 tsp lemon juice per pork chop
2 tsp brown sugar per pork chop

Brine:
Boil water, wine, salt, and Herbs de Province. Boil for at least 20 minutes, or until it will fit with the chops in a 1 gallon Ziplock bag. Cool the brine. Place the pork chops in the Ziplock bag and then pour in the brine. Put in fridge for about 24 hours.

Cooking:
Preheat oven at 350 degrees F. Place chops in a large, shallow baking dish. Don't let them touch. If you need to, use a second baking dish to accommodate all the chops. Throw out brine. Put the chops in the oven. While the chops are cooking, core the apple, leaving the skin on. Cut it into 1/2" slices - enough to have three slices per chop. After the chops have been cooking for 1hr and 15 minutes, take them out. Place three apple slices on each chop, then sprinkle 1 tsp lemon juice and 2 tsp's brown sugar over the apples on each chop. Cover loosely with foil and bake for another 15 minutes.

Cooper's Hawk Harasses Barred Owl

2009-11-23T16:21:00.003-05:00

Today Dory and I were walking Chomsky in the backyard, and heard a Cooper's Hawk making a racket. Turns out, the hawk was harassing a Barred Owl! We went quickly back into the house, left Chomsky there, and I grabbed the binoculars and my camera. Luckily I had the long lens already attached, and was able to get about 13 pics before both birds flew away.

By the way, how do you tell a 5-month old to please be quiet so she won't scare the birds away?

Isadora Jade

2009-07-16T22:37:00.005-04:00

Greetings! We are now the proud parents of Dory. She was born at 1:18am on June 22, 2009. She weighed 6 pounds, 6.8 ounces and was 20.25 inches long. She was born with blue eyes and a little medium brown, straight hair. So far, 3 1/2 weeks later, her hair and eyes are still the same.

Today in photos

2009-03-12T21:52:00.004-04:00

Mecklenburg County Courthouse with me frowning at my iPhone camera
because I can't figure out if it's taking the picture.

The weeping willows are blooming!

Other bloomin' trees!

A picturesque spot.

I liked this - they're trying to use half an apple to catch some pesky critter!

For yesterday

2009-03-12T21:51:00.001-04:00

Yesterday was a frantic day of preparing for trial. That is all.

Reflections on tummy touching

2009-03-11T08:13:00.002-04:00

I was warned that when my pregnant belly got big enough, strangers would start touching it without permission. This is not cool with me.

I thought I could wear a t-shirt that said "Hands off my baby" or something, but I can't wear that to work. I though maybe I could just touch the toucher's belly back, but then I'd just be in a more uncomfortable social situation than before.

Then I forgot to think about it for a while because only family and close friends were touching and they were even asking permission first.

Then last night I went to one of my favorite restaurants for dinner and a waitress I'm acquainted with reached right over and put her hand on my tummy. Momentarily I went into shock - ack! - I screamed in my head - it's starting! What do I do to stop it!?

And then she took her hand away and I just smiled and told her when the baby is due. I decided she wasn't enough of a stranger to flip out over. That was simply the easier decision.

I hope total strangers don't start touching me now. Time to start thinking again about ways to politely avoid that. Any ideas?

Early driving, evening walk

2009-03-09T22:00:00.005-04:00

This morning began at 3:30 am as I pulled my sleepy self out of bed. Over five hours later I was in New Bern, NC arguing the three cases we had on the calendar there.

I got back in town just after four, and after changing out of my suit, I went to work to log in today's cases and prepare for tomorrow's. Then I headed back out to R.Gardens for an evening walk. I took another picture of the weeping willows. Look how much more the are in bloom than just yesterday!

I love spring. But it unfolds so rapidly that if you're not watching, you miss many of the intricate details!

Yesterday in Pics

2009-03-09T04:40:00.003-04:00

Yesterday Fun

2009-03-08T12:02:00.003-04:00

Ooops! Got so carried away yesterday I forgot to blog!

Went to work and worked for a couple hours, then went to Panera for lunch/dinner and a knitting session, then went to Reynolda Gardens for a half-hour walk. There were birds everywhere and people enjoying the first really warm day! Then I had some Coldstone ice cream in my car with tunes at dusk before hitting A.C. Moore for some cotton yarn for a neat baby bathrobe I want to knit. Then I went home and fed the pooch and the kitties, swapped around some laundry, discovered I needed more yarn for my project, and then headed back out. I went to A.C. Moore first for another ball of yarn, then headed over to Krankie's for another knitting session.

What a great day! Only when I got home I discovered I'd picked up the other color of yarn I'd liked instead of the color I'd chosen. Ooops. More stash for later!

Long Day, Tired, Not Creative

2009-03-06T23:42:00.002-05:00

So I know I'm supposed to make this interesting, but I'm really tired. So. Today I was glad to eat lunch, eat dinner, mark almost everything of my work list, and deal with the fact that I may have to drive 4 hours one-way to Craven County on Monday to argue 3 motions just to turn around and drive back. I accidentally woke Chomsky too quickly with excited doggy pats and he growled at me while acting sheepish and confused until he was awake. Also, I think I unclogged one of the 2 toilets at work but the other one is still not flushing right. So. That's today's interesting stuff through the foggy filter of almost-sleep. Zzzzzz....

Blog Fest

2009-03-05T19:37:00.002-05:00

So I haven't been blogging much and I'm just going to see if I can blog for 9 consecutive days and be interesting every day.

Today is easy. I found this awesome new community website that I spend WAY too much time on. :) It's for knitters and crocheters and is called Ravelry. I've already talked about it on FaceBook so after I talk about it here, I'll stop. For a while. :)

It has a profile page where you can describe yourself, it has organizational pages where you can post your relevant books, post your current and finished projects (plus pics), keep track of your yarn stock (plus pics), and keep track of patterns or projects you want to undertake in the future. Plus, OH YEAH, it has links to tons and gazillions and loads of projects and patterns (some free and some not).

So I'm "hooked" and have spent a lot of time setting up my pages and queuing projects. This baby blanket is what I'm working on now...a free pattern I found through Ravelry.

Woohoo! Time for a pulled pork sandwich made from a pork shoulder Dan cooked. Yum.

Camry takes hit

2009-01-24T12:12:00.002-05:00

Okay. So you fix a car and the same day that you pick it up from the shop someone hits it in the parking lot. Nice.

Coketastic

2008-08-14T10:06:00.003-04:00

This rocks! Go see these Belgian students break the world record for number of simultaneous Coke/Mento eruptions. I think Latvia broke the record the Belgians set, but the Belgian students appear more organized. :)

The Razor's Edge

2008-03-30T13:11:00.002-04:00

I finished this book in the tub yesterday afternoon. I liked this one not for the plot or story (there isn't one), but for the characters. Larry is my favorite because he's so different and marches to his own tune. I like Isabelle but less as the story progresses. She loses herself in her own image I think. Anyway, it was an interesting tale, but this book won't haunt my thoughts or leave much of an impression on me.

Mud Ice

2008-03-09T15:26:00.006-04:00

I went tromping through the woods today, and discovered several little fields of the strangest ice I think I've ever seen. Look - here is one of them. At first I wasn't sure it was ice, because it seemed too warm out. But they were in the shade, and I took my glove off and let one melt in my hand to make sure.

Then when I got back home, I looked for ice crystal images online and found one just like mine on Flickr.

Does anyone know how these crystals form? I figure as the mud gets colder, the water freezes and expands. What's really interesting to me is that the water molecules freeze to each other and push up out of the mud rather than forming a uniform mud-ice block. Weird. Maybe I'll try freezing some mud and see if I can grow these crystals.

Book Double

2008-03-02T20:26:00.004-05:00

I've gotten behind in my book reports so I'm doing two briefly in one.

The last book I read is Life of Pi, a book I bought in Ithaca and read most of in the Philadelphia airport while my flights kept getting canceled and delayed. Life of Pi was quite an adventure and hard to put down, even to board my flight to finally get out of Philly and head home. The writing was nothing to note, and simultaneously didn't get in the way of the story. The characters were very real, and the author understands animals as well as he understands people. The diligence and dedication of Pi to his life and that of his boat-mates creates hope and a renewed appreciation of the world in the reader. I don't think it was as good as other critics seem to think, but it was real - as in keepin' it that way. It's a good book and worth the read. And when you get to the end, talk to me about what you think. I didn't like it even though it added a layer - I felt it was a last-minute gotcha. But I'll keep an open mind.

Before I picked up Pi in Ithaca, I finished The Grapes of Wrath on the trip there. I really liked the book. It was about real people and real life. Hard, dirty, sad, and yet full of dreams, keeping people alive even when they were dreams that could never be fulfilled. Maybe part of the reason I really enjoyed this book is that I grew up in Oklahoma, I lived in California, and I've traveled I-40 west myself a few times. The places were familiar and the people were familiar. I enjoyed the characters, particularly Casey and Tom and Ma. Those are strong people and amazing characters. This is an earthy story and I was not ready for it to end where it did. But I don't want to ruin it for those few of you left who haven't read it yet. I see why high-schools teach this book. It's a bit of the U.S. that one should know.

Open Air Birding

2008-02-03T22:21:00.001-05:00

This weekend felt like the first of spring. I sat on a rock near my feeding station and took these pictures from there rather from in the dining room through the window pane. From most common in my backyard to the most rare there:

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Brown Creeper

The French Lieutenant's Woman

2008-02-02T00:00:00.000-05:00

I just finished this book. It's good. It's real literature. The writer breaks the usual rules of writing in several ways; sometimes to my annoyance and sometimes to my pleased surprise.

I found this book well-paced for the first several chapters and then I found it excruciatingly slow. At chapter 20 I would have put it down except for a timely telephone conversation with my mom in which she wisely told me to give it more time. At about chapter 25 it picks up and becomes much more interesting. I read the last chapter in a mad dash and upon setting the book down and having contemplated the story and the ends and the means for several minutes, had to pick it up again and reread the final paragraph. It's a good final paragraph.

In sum, this book is actually an inquiry into the nature of the meaning and purpose of life. It's dressed up in a droll little tale of love and integrity and lessons learned, but it leads you unexpectedly from innocent, blind youth into a wider, deeper, and wiser maturity. In the end the story falls away like ashes from a fire. My thoughts keep wandering back to the story and to the underlying currents of life that guides it.

It isn't a passing fanciful entertainment piece. While I am feeding the birds tomorrow morning I will be thinking about it, and while I'm driving to work tomorrow afternoon to check the mail, I will still be thinking about it. Then, while I am roasting the chicken I bought today for dinner tomorrow night, I will be thinking about it some more.

Downy Woodpecker and Ruby-crowned Kinglet

2008-01-27T20:13:00.000-05:00

This little kinglet has been hanging out with my chickadee crowd all winter. Today I finally got a couple good shots of him. I couldn't choose just one!

Last Weekend's Bird Pic

2008-01-26T22:31:00.000-05:00

This beautiful male Red-bellied Woodpecker is a newcomer to my feeders. He is still very shy. Maybe it was the cold weather and snow of the day before that brought him in.

A fire, a book, and a snow day.

2008-01-17T21:43:00.000-05:00

Today was one of snow and freezing rain. I decided against braving the roads and stayed home.

So instead of going to work, I built a fire in the fireplace
and read a graphic novel called Fun Home.
I discovered the book in this way: last night I asked Dan for something to read and he handed me the book. I didn't think I wanted to read a graphic novel so I hesitated to accept it, but he said it was good. I decided to read it since he'd said the same thing when he suggested I read Maus and Barefoot Gen (other graphic novels which I VERY strongly recommend about the Holocaust and the nuclear bombing of Japan). I started reading and got so absorbed I finished it this evening, less than 24 hours later. The name "Fun Home" appears to be a play on "funeral home" which is where the protagonist's (author's - it's autobiographical) father works during her childhood. The book's about her life growing up and her trials and tribulations dealing with her own sexuality and her relationship with her father. It was interesting because the story was compelling and the art was good. The last panel at the end of chapter five is amazing; in fact, that panel is the cover of the French version of the book.

So besides reading, I decided to make fire food for dinner. I wrapped in foil packets: carrots with brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes with butter and sugar, and mahi mahi with clementine juice. I stuck the foil packets in the coals of the fire and managed to create a yummy dinner that didn't burn at all! Yum.

Fun Book

2008-01-17T15:56:00.001-05:00

I recently finished this book. It was a lot of fun. Nothing heavy, nothing too demanding - just a good vacation book. It's set in San Francisco, and was fun to read because it felt like a walk with a familiar friend. I think this is the first book in a series with the same character, so I'm going to get the next book, too. :)

Here's a link to it if you're interested. I paid $13 at Borders but it looks like you can get a used copy for 97 cents through Amazon. Cheers!

Car switch

2008-01-13T15:22:00.000-05:00

So Dan got in a car accident last month when a young woman ran a stop sign and hit Dan's Subaru in the back right quarter panel.

The insurance company totaled the Subaru, so we were in the market for another car - see below. :) We bought a 2003 Volvo V70 2.4T. It rocks! I am so jealous! Sorry Grenadine (my reliable Camry). We think we got a good car at a good price and we both love to drive it. It has leather seats and a sun (moon?) roof, and its turbo engine gives it kick to merge and pass that we've never had before!

I'm sounding like a commercial so I'll just post the pictures now.

2007-12-02T22:35:00.000-05:00

This weekend I had a lot of neat pictures, but I liked the sun coming through this Cardinal's crest feathers so it gets to be my picture of the weekend.

Project FeederWatch Begins

2007-11-25T23:11:00.000-05:00

I have joined Project FeederWatch - a winter birdwatching data collection project that the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology runs. You note your feeder area ecosystem, describe your feeders, and count birds on weekend days (the most of each you see at any one time). It's so much fun!

I'm taking photos, too, and am going to post weekly best bird pics here. This weekend's photo is of a Brown Thrasher who took a long bath early this afternoon.

Jack O Lantern

2007-11-08T22:38:00.000-05:00

"Planet" photography - wow!!!

2007-08-18T12:15:00.000-04:00

Directions: take at least 2 dozen pictures, run them through an autostitch program to combine them into one, then map that to polar coordinates and, like magic, you get a planet!

Dan did one of the chapel quad at Wake:

Here's another neat one I found done in a city at night.

Neat!

Moving

2007-08-16T21:55:00.000-04:00

So we are moving! We found a great house on 22 acres 45 minutes NE of where we are now. It's going to be a neat place so come visit us! This is our backyard: I'm not kidding. Life just burped roses.

Sculpture Two

2007-08-05T13:49:00.000-04:00

Well, I tried it again, and though I like the bird (of FIMO and attached to the hand with magnets in the clay), the girl didn't turn out so well. It's drying now - 24 hour clay - and I'm trying to get the right arm to stay up higher. :) Oh well. No failures means you're not trying, eh?

Sculpture

2007-07-30T21:40:00.000-04:00

Well yesterday I did something new! I tried sculpting and made this. I took over 300 pictures of the process, so wait with bated breath while I create "the making of" claymation video - coming soon!!! :) Life is fun.

A trip to France

2007-07-29T21:18:00.000-04:00

From July 13-22, Dan and I visited France, thanks to the generosity of his parents. It was a lot of fun. We saw so much and I have fallen in love with pain au chocolat!

We spent the first several days in St. Marcellin, a small town in the Alps near Grenoble.

We could look out over the town and the mountains from the deck of the house in which we stayed. While there we explored, and saw the hanging houses in Pont-En-Royans.

From there we went to the Grottos de Choranche, which is full of "soda straw" stalactites made by water dripping slowly through tubes of of crystalline limestone to create amazing chandeliers of stalactites up to almost 10 feet long.

The same day, we went to where monks make Chartreuse, a green liquor made of 150 different herbs. Only 2 monks know the secret recipe, and they monitor the oak vats of liquor from their monastary via computer. :) How modern!

The next day we took an amazing drive switchback-style up one gorge and down another, visiting a monument to the WWII French Resistance Fighters before visiting a Rhone winery and nearby a chocolate manufacturer (YUM!).

Then we took a fast train to Paris, where we visited
Sainte Chapelle (the stained glass) and Notre Dame (across the Seine in the picture),

the Louvre, the Musee de Orsay, Montmartre and the Basilica of Sacre Coeur, the Eiffel Tower, and my VERY favorite, the Rodin Museum.

RECIPE: Chicken & Corn Chili

2007-07-08T18:41:00.000-04:00

This is a great recipe I adapted from a Yourself Fitness dish. It takes time to simmer, but is otherwise a very simple meal that's just as good as leftovers. To make cooking quicker, I boil a chicken in advance, pull off the meat in bite-sized chunks and freeze it. I find the meat from one average-sized chicken is about right for this recipe. You'll get about 6 servings.

(In the photo I used baked beans because I didn't have black beans. This makes it sweeter - I don't like it as much.)

You will need:
4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts (or an equivalent amount of boiled chicken)
1-16oz jar garlic salsa (I prefer Green Mountain Gringo Roasted Garlic)
1tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground cayenne pepper
salt and pepper to taste
1-11oz can Mexican-style corn
1-15oz can black beans

Then:
Place the salsa in a pot and put the chicken on top, along with all the spices, then stir. Cook about 1hr on low or until the chicken is cooked through, or just until hot if you have pre-cooked chicken. Shred the chicken breasts, if using, then pour in the corn and black beans. Cook for 2 more hours and simmer until ready to serve. You can serve it as soon as it's hot, but the flavors really blend the longer it simmers (up to 9 hours in the original recipe, but I've never gone more than 5, and 3 is plenty). Serve hot.

This is great with cornbread. Enjoy!

Hooray!!!!!

2007-06-30T00:01:00.000-04:00

So Mike and Anita are hitched and the wedding was beautiful and the whole event so much fun it was a let-down to have to go home. (although we did miss the pets). I'm still not finished digesting all the wonderful food we were given.

Hooray!

Southern Recipes!

2007-06-09T11:18:00.001-04:00

So I was looking for a recipe for Moravian Chicken Pie (Dan loves it), and I found this recipe archive through the local paper. Now that I look at them...maybe they're not all Southern. They look interesting, though. Cheers!

Fade back

2007-03-10T18:31:00.000-05:00

I just finished a writing the guitar part and lyrics to a new song. Since I'm not looking to be a famous rock star I'll put the words here. Maybe someday I'll record it and put it up for all to hear. :)

FADE BACK
Lost in a crowd
Of people I knew
Looking for friends
But there are only a few

Everyone's caught
Up in their game
Looks like everyone's winning
But not everyone came

Asking the questions that everyone's asked
Ignoring the answers they've gotten down pat
And I fade back.

Lost in a crowd
Of places I knew
Looking for someone
To stand next to

Staring like a tourist
But looking into the past
I'd talk about what happened
But nobody's asked

Asking the question that everyone's asked
But I chose this universe and those curses were cast
And I fade back.
And I fade back.

Kitty Cancer

2007-03-06T20:41:00.000-05:00

Well, bad news comes today.

I took Owen to the vet because he had a knot in his tummy - turns out he probably has lymphatic cancer. The tumor in his tummy is nearly the size of his body cavity, and what I was feeling wasn't the tumor but his kidney from where it had been pushed against his side by the tumor. The vet took some cells and we're going to see what it really is, but his prognosis is that he's terminal and the vet doesn't expect him to live but weeks now.

Luckily, he doesn't seem to have any pain yet, so we're just keeping him spoiled and comfy as long as we can.

Mike, it IS a bad season for pets.

Cool Hands

2007-03-01T21:17:00.000-05:00

Hey! My fingers are famous! Check them out at Hubby's cool new website, holding the whatchamawhoozie.

Lucy

2007-02-14T22:40:00.000-05:00

In memorium.

My sister and her boyfriend lost their dog, Lucy, last Friday night. She was hit by a car and died soon thereafter.

May she romp and play and eat lots of yummy things in doggy heaven.

Slapdash Soup

2007-02-05T19:36:00.000-05:00

Slapdash: adj.: haphazard; slipshod.

Slapdash Soup: n.: the dinner I make where I throw whatever random food I have left over, canned, or about to go bad into a pot and make it into soup.

Tonight we're having strips of steak with a can each of split pea soup, green beans, and picnic pinto beans, tossed in with carrots, snap peas, celery, and brussel sprouts, and flavored with garlic salt, black pepper, salt, parsley, basil, dried garlic, dried onions, and most of a bottle of black & tan beer.

I'll let you know if it's any good. :)

Changes

2007-02-04T19:12:00.000-05:00

After working here 1 year, 1 month and 24 days and after appearing at 123 court hearings in 42 counties, I am now managing attorney for the North Carolina branch of Eric M. Berman, P.C. Needless to say (but I'm saying it anyway so what does that phrase really mean?), I am very busy.

Life is beautiful, even though it is very cold outside today. Bluster bluster.

Protesting the Death Penalty: Lighting the Roman Colosseum

2007-01-07T09:06:00.000-05:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6238131.stm

The death penalty should not be part of any legal system. This is not because I think perpetrators of heinous crimes should not ever be put to death, but because we can never be sure enough of guilt to allow death to be a punishment. I am not against the idea of the death penalty. If there were some way to know the defendant was guilty, not beyond a reasonable doubt but for sure, then I would support removing the worts of the worst, such as mass murders, from the global community.

We kill innocent people. Not on purpose, but because we can not help it. There are many emotional reasons to want to execute someone that may lead to the conviction and killing of an innocent person. These include a desire for actual justice, or worse, for publicly perceived justice; a desire to set an example for other potential murderers, and a desire to punish the killer. But these reasons are emotionally explosive, and the anger, pain, and fear resulting from heinous crimes demand immediate appeasement. Logic and measured analysis are easily shoved aside by the most well-meaning jurors when they are confronted with violence, filled with self-righteousness, and delivered a defendant, likely of unsavory character, and they think the defendant must be here for a reason.

Setting aside unintentional bias and emotionally-induced error, there is the potential for intentional mis-conviction and mis-execution. There are people in power who are not honest and fair. It is naive to think scapegoats have not been used by our government. There are innocent suspects who may confess for selfish reasons, to protect someone else, or out of fear. Law enforcement officers and politicians feel the pressure of the public to find the criminal and punish him or her. Everyone wants to see justice done; so much so that an innocent person may be made an intentional or, perhaps more disturbingly, an unintentional, scapegoat. Everyone wants closure and this pressure is strong enough to bring the innocent to the death chamber.

And none of these desires necessarily leads us to the actual perpetrator. These desires give us strong emotional reasons to impose the death penalty: retribution. A desire for retribution can grip a well-meaning jury and sweep aside a dearth of evidence, proper application of the law, even logic, and result in the conviction and execution of innocent people. While retribution is a dangerous reason to kill, executing criminals to deter others from committing the crime may be even more hazardous and malignant. This purpose is served by killing innocents as well as criminals, and to execute anyone for this purpose is too great a cost. The example set does not take; no one commits a crime intending to be caught.

There are many other reasons to oppose the death penalty, and they are as varied as the religions of the world. But they are often based on dogma or ethics rather than logic and reason. Dogma and ethics are endlessly debatable and can only be resolved in an agreement to disagree, given they are not provable.

Therefore the only rational and logical reason to impose the death penalty would be as a social execution in self-defense of the community. But this only works if we know for sure that the person we are killing is guilty. Notions of fairness, logic, and reason should underly the ultimate decision to oppose, or for that matter, support, the death penalty. This means that until we are omnipresent, omniscient, have all the evidence, know all the facts, and can untangle logic from human emotion, we can not know that the people we kill are not innocent.

May the lights burning in the Colosseum help motivate us to eradicate the death penalty.

Quote for the day...

2006-11-30T22:55:00.000-05:00

If you always do what you've always done, then you'll always get what you've always gotten.

---- one businessman to another at a restaurant in Winston-Salem, NC

Yarn

2006-11-29T22:53:00.000-05:00

Well, I sit in my office with the ceiling fan spinning on a beautiful spring night in late November. Is that you, global warming? I talked to my mom this evening as a snow storm rushed in on the Midwest. She said it was beautiful this morning and that she even had the doors open to let the beautiful day inside. But not tonight!

I am surrounded by my latest obsession. Yarn. I learned how to crochet last fall, and started learning how to knit about a month ago. I love to peruse the yarn section of the hobby shops. I hold one skein against another to find colors that look good together, and I like to touch the soft-looking yarns against my cheek when no one's looking. Right now I am in the middle of about 14 projects. I like to move from one to another - different yarn, different colors, different patterns and all different stitches. I made a scarf for Hubby's sister over Thanksgiving and gave it to her then. She liked the color of the yarn when she saw it so of course I had to make her something with it! It goes with her winter coat.

Long Time No See

2006-09-17T19:20:00.000-04:00

I'm busy. Be back soon.

2006-08-01T20:40:00.000-04:00

I've added a link to Mike's blog on the right. Looks like it is monsoon season there in Madison. It was just hot again in North Carolina today. Not wet by rain; just by sweat. Yum.

2006-07-28T20:52:00.000-04:00

So today I went to Raleigh to argue a motion to confirm an arbitration award. On the way I listened first to a neat CD Abbie made me called Movin' Music and then to a Barenaked Ladies album. It was a good morning. Then while I was waiting for the elevator, out of nowhere a girl asked to borrow my cell phone. I obliged, and waited while she talked to her Mom. Odd.

So while yesterday was hot, muggy, and stormy; today was just HOT. We got new phone books delivered at the office and the poor delivery guy looked like he was beginning to melt.

Good thing: our copier is back up after the office was struck by lightning last Saturday night. Yay!!!

2006-07-28T20:44:00.000-04:00

Thursday afternoon I had an arbitration hearing in Fayetteville, where Fort Bragg is located. It's very patriotic there. I got into town early, so I went to the IHOP in town for a sundae and some coffee. There are still 4th of July decorations up. The hearing was at 4:30, and at 5:00 the clock tower rang out to the tune of America. There are guys and gals in fatigues everywhere. Different.

2006-07-25T23:44:00.000-04:00

I rediscovered music today. I played piano and guitar for several hours, starting with classical and ending with Joni Mitchell. :) So here's a picture I took at Hanging Rock state park last month. It's either an Acadian or Willow Flycatcher but he didn't speak up so I don't know which one. :)

Courts and Cameras

2006-06-28T19:30:00.000-04:00

Busy week this week - Monday in Gaston County, Tuesday in Buncombe County, Wednesday in Wake County, and tomorrow in Wake County, too. But I'm going to be inheriting (well, paying a good price for) a digital Canon SLR camera this weekend! :):):) So I'm hoping to take some cool pics to put here and make this blog better.

Woohoo!!!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..................

2006-06-25T21:31:00.000-04:00

OMG, bed good. Nap like heaven, floating on clouds. I can't wait to go to bed tonight. :) :) :) :) :) :) (And I'm not one to use "OMG" lightly!)

New bed!!!!

2006-06-25T13:05:00.000-04:00

Today we're getting a new bed - an expensive one, too, so hopefully it will last a VERY long time. It's a king tempur-pedic...woohoo! I've had nothing but futons and air mattresses since college. A real bed! Since we bought the bed last night I've been washing all the new bedding: a special waterproof mattress pad that is required by the manufacturer or else the warranty is void, a thicker mattress pad that I bought to protect further from dog claws, two sets of sheets, a blanket, and a futon cover. :) I'm worried about the dog getting on this bed.
Anyway, we cleared the way for the delivery guys: pushed back the living room furniture, took down the dog crate, vacuumed the path, cleared out the hallway, and even took apart the futon and vacuumed the bedroom. :)

Now we're waiting. Delivery time is from 1-3pm today. I shut the cats in the garage. Chomsky'll go outside when the time comes. What fun!

On marriage and the Weather

2006-06-13T23:38:00.000-04:00

So I am married now - as of Friday, June 2nd at about 6:50pm.

The security is beautiful but the commitment is frightning - like the dark ocean depths I saw as a snorkler in Cancun when I suddenly came to the edge of the reef.

Or like the way Tropical Storm Alberto arrived yesterday causing the most dramatic wind sheer I've ever seen: high, white clouds drifting east high above while low, heavy grey clouds rushed west underneath them. I've never seen such fantastic opposing power except in funnel clouds. Welcome, back, hurricane season.

2006-04-30T09:43:00.000-04:00

In this way answers form themselves:
simply, quietly, and unobtrusively.
No one notices when they arrive.
No one notices as they hover patiently in the shadows.
Then when the question finally forms itself
the answer, we realize, was waiting.

Initial Post

2006-04-24T19:43:00.000-04:00

Hey, look at me! I have a blog. I've been talking about doing this for some time. Now, exhausted from a long day of driving from Forsyth County to Hayward County and back (3 hours one way), I decided to create this blog.

Thank you for your patronage. Hopefully I will have the stamina to maintain my blog and the insight to actually create something worth reading.