This week I've been attending my brother's trial. He was caught with 6 grams of cocaine (1/4 oz, or about a tablespoonful), and a scale. He was found guilty of "distribution", which includes sharing, and is now looking at a minimum of 10 years, but more likely the 30 years set out in the guidelines. He's 61, and non-violent. He's likely to die in jail. He's not criminally bad, but I guess he's criminally stupid.
We have 10 times as many people in jail as England. I'll bet we could have
5 times as many and save enough money to have socialized medicine here with no increase in taxes. It will cost us tax payers $1.5 million to keep Frank in jail, if he lives long enough, and unless costs go up.
Today, I'll get the house back in order. Got the dishes done and counters cleaned this morning. Garden needs work, floors are a mess. At least I got Susie's beaded purse crocheted for her wedding.
There's something seriously wrong with our system when non-violent drug offenders receive harsher sentences than rapists, murderers, etc.
Do we get to se a picture of the purse?
As for me, I have a torn trapezoid musle, and can do very little with my right hand, so beading and lampwork are out for a while. Sigh. It hasn't been a fun month.
Sorry to hear that. I know nothing about cocaine, but that sounds like a rather small amount to be charged with distribution.
Picture? - And as getting the house back in oder goes, if DD wasn't helping (well, she causes a good amount of the dishes) I wouldn't have a snowball's chance. Never mind the yard. I'm crocheting her a bag (no beads) for her camera so that it doesn't get scratched in her purse.
Truck is almost 2/3 full of lilikoi, she helped with that too, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to get as much done. - There's more left, most of them from a largish lot on the other side of town where the owner told me "please feel free to go in and pick as much as you want", which really would be "all", but in the end I said "I'm not going to scramble down that hill again and carry another 30 lb back up".
And I sold several 100 Swarovski crystals to jewelry makers at the farmers market yesterday. Even if my markup is rather small when I sell those at the market, I'm quite happy with that. (No, I don't have a stand there, I target sellers, so I don't spend a large number of hours and I don't pay rent).
As long as you (and we all), can keep that attitude it sounds like we'll keep going :-)
It's still sinking in. I think I've come to terms with it and then I'll remember that his son doesn't know yet, or wonder which of us will tell my mother, or realize that for my children Frank will just kind of cease to exist. What Frank did was not acceptable, but there's a vast distance between "acceptable" and the 30 to life recommended (which the judge has to justify if he doesn't follow the guidelines), and there's maybe a month off per year for "good time".
And it costs the tax-payers $55K per year -- more as costs go up, less if prisoners die first. That's $1.5 million. You know, if we sent all drug offenders to rehab (for the same amount of time even), we'd cut at least 15% off Corrections costs. Rehab doesn't have a tremendously high rate of success, but it's at least 6 or 8 times as good as jail (even for shorter programs).
And the prosecutor lied. About me, no less.
I'm so sorry to hear about your shoulder, Jerri. How did you hurt it? And how long before you can use it again. Can't do wire, I'm sure, but what about seed beads?
I tore the tendon on top of my right ring finger about 3 months ago, and am still needing to wear a splint at least at night. But it doesn't really hurt, and I can still work with the splint holding the last joint straight. After all, I'm used to being kind of clumsy.
Our Queensland Heeler is nearing her end now. I've only had a cat, and my husband has never had a dog die of old age. Stella has a fairly thin face and a very fat body, with what feel like fibrous tumors that I can feel, so I think she has a lot of tumors, and she seems to be in some pain. We give her lots of attention, and also Reiki seems to help. I have mixed eelings -- I hope things are resolved before my daughter's wedding so Pete doesn't have to either deal with this when I go to AZ before he does, or have to deal with her dying "alone" when we're both Outside.
Boy, this is just not a good time for me to get dysfunctional! As I tell people, one of the benefits of Depression is that I have to decide what is most important (and effective) and put my energy into those things, since the primary effect of my illness is that my head runs out of room.
And so, wedding preparations continue. My daughter's fiancé is great!
I didn't know what was normal usage either, until the trial. I guess 3 grams is well within normal range for an addict to use in a weekend, but 6 grams would suggest that he's might have been going to share it (eg, with his girlfriend) even if he didn't plan to sell any of it. And "sharing" is "distributing". The only two witnesses were women who had pending cases and were getting consideration in exchange for their testimony, and who had a histories of having given false reports. One of the jurors has ramshackle apartments where drugs are dealt from. I wonder what Frank did to piss off the DEA agent.
Yeah, I'd better get that purse photographed. But its so light, I don't know if it will show up decently. It's white cotton with silver lined matte clear beads and just of few pale accent beads. So I may have to show you a different bag.
We've got about 11 cords of dry firewood in our pile now. Hope to get another 10 cords, but prefer it be green which doesn't burn as fast. We'll burn more than 10 cords this winter, and we'd like to get a start on next years wood. With the price of oil, it's like money in the bank. What do you pay for gas?
We don't have anything growing that we can eat yet except leaves. And our neighbor's rhubarb. I make a sauce of it that's great with ice cream, and adapted a recipe for applesauce cake to use the sauce. Our friend from Mexico (I stay there when I go to the dentist) loves rhubarb pie so I've been making her one of those every week or two. And will continue to do so as long as the weather is cool enough. With store bought crust.
Soon it will be time to check on the progress of the blueberries. I imagine they'll be ready within a couple weeks. And then the Lingon berries, called "Low Bush Cranberry" but actually a red blueberry and not in the cranberry family. They should be ready about the time I'm getting ready to start packing for the wedding. And the first run of salmon was too poor to get our fish, but they're doing better now, so we need to plan for our trip to Copper River to dip-net our 30 salmon.
For the wedding I'm bringing smoked salmon. And I'll send down berry jam in a flat-rate box, so I don't have to carry it.
I grew up in Calif, and I envy you all the wonderful fruit you have in HI.
Great plan to sell Swarovski crystal to the sellers instead of getting a booth. Especially in summer. Or is winter a time that's even busier for you?
Yes, if someone's using drugs, and only hurting themselves, I have a hard time understanding the harsh sentences. Many years ago, I worked with a nurse who's father was killed by a drunk driver. For whatever reason, the judge was lenient and the drunk served something like 2 years. It just doesn't make sense. Harming yourself is one thing, but if you take the life of someone else because of your drinking or drugs, I think they should throw the book at you!
As for the shoulder, I'm just a klutz. I fell while working out in the yard. I can use the arm fine, but it's the fine motor skills I have trouble with. I can barely write a check before those muscles fatigue. Anything repetitious is difficult. (All these garden vegetables, and I have trouble cutting and chopping!) I tried a little seed beading the other day and could only do a few minutes. Thank goodness, my 14 yr. old finished the gift I was making for me. It's very frustrating, that I can't do what I want to, but fortunately the severe pain is mostly gone now. Those stabbing pains nearly did me in!
Sorry to hear about your QH. It is so hard to lose them. Spike is 7 1/2, not really old at all, but finally slowing down a bit and not at full speed all the time. I am taking Caesar, who's 4, through an agility class and having a ball. It is so much fun. He's such a great runner and jumper that I thought he would love it.
So glad you hear you like your son-in-law-to-be! It must be nice to know your kiddo is marrying a good guy.
Tina, I'm sorry to hear about your brother. It seems to me that if he didn't have the scale with him, maybe they wouldn't have charged him with "distribution." Was that a factor? Does the judge have any leeway in the sentencing or is it a mandatory term? I hope the judge will be thoughtful and examine the situation. Try to keep a positive attitude. There's NOTHING you can do about this situation except control the way you react to it.
Look at it from the dog's point of view; "I know they love me but I'm tired now and I hope they will let me go soon -- I'm ready to go and wait for them in the place near the Rainbow Bridge,"
Ha, rhubarb. I miss that! I tried growing rhubarb here once, it didn't live very long. At least I found something called "Ceylon gooseberries" last year that has a taste that very much resembles real gooseberries.
and the salmon ...
I've been told that loquats do much better in California than they do here. I'd like to have loquats.
We have a bit of a shortage of cruise ships right now, but according to the harbor schedule they're going to come back in the fall. Hilo isn't really a tourist destination so much as the other side of the island, Kona, is. We have the volcano, and still more of a feel of old Hawaii, plantation culture, but it's not the "mai tais on the beach" Hawaii that a lot of tourists expect. - But I have some jewelry in stores there, of course means wholesale pricing, but also means I don't have to do the selling. - Tourist season really is both summer and winter, and the times in between are slow.
Sorry to read about your Queensland Heeler in the other post. We had a hard time getting over our old cat passing away. I take the dead rodents the other ones leave us to her grave as she can't go after them anymore ... (now wondering whether there is something like
formatting link
for dogs - I hope I spelled that one right. Somebody posted that here, and it helped me a lot.) Aloha, Maren
Tina, you are having challenging times. My thoughts are with you. Did you ever get my reply off line? I haven't had access for two times since then to the newsgroup and even though we are quiet these days I really miss the group.
offenders receive harsher sentences than rapists, murderers, etc.
What is wrong is that running a prison is the NUMBER ONE (!!) fastest growth industry in America...with all those uniforms, new prison construction, cafeteria food, records maintainence etc, being support industries that are making record breaking growth. (thats not even mentioning the lawyers involved all along the way, and hardly ever working for free, either)
We build more new prisons than we do new schools here in the US, and spend more maintaining the existing ones. Do a comparison of first year public school teacher pay and first year guards at prison pay...don't kid yourself into thinking that prisons are more "dangerous" either, as many school students are currently armed and few prisoners remain so for long. Prisons are very profitable, and guess what is the raw resource that is needed for continued growth....yes, it is MORE PRISONERS. More prisoners=more money for those supporting the prison systems as a business. Its all about numbers and there are many more people involved in non-legal drugs by comparison to those commiting murder or rape. Watch commercial television and you will see that we are daily conditioned towards being drug users by our predominant advertisers the pharmaceutical industry (the other growth industry, what a coincidence) ---"Tired? buy this drug! Too edgy? Buy this drug! Sick from all the drugs you've taken? Buy this drug! Dying or dead? take a pill, and LITIGATE!"
You know, this is something most people don't understand. The price is horrific. There are so very many people who go to jail. In Alaska 45% of residents have been in jail!!!! And this really is not a state swarming with criminals. I don't know what the statistics are in other states.
In spite of the high percentage of people who go to jail, the problem is not very visible. But only in the "elephant in the living room" sense. People deny the problem; lie about that uncle or friend, so that even close friends and relatives often don't know. So the problem isn't addressed because it isn't acknowledged.
Of course, one of the problems with correcting our problem of having too many people in jail is that there are so many employees who would lose their jobs, and unions that would lose power.
I think we will have to attack this problem and the one of national health at the same time for 2 reasons. One is that it will give those employees -- record keepers, support industries, etc -- some place to go. The other is that mental and physical illness often lead to crime or jail (as well as unemployment, etc).
I wish the Democrats would look at this the way Republicans often look at things. They will claim a benefit to society as a whole comes from giving corporate welfare which then trickles down to every one. I say that citizens with good physical and mental health are a benefit to society leading to better tax payers. Reform for prisons will lower costs which were similar to our expenditures on defense against foreign offenders, and will keep people out of an environment where they learn criminal behaviour.
Ironically, while the immediate benefits of both would go to the poor slob on the lowest rungs, the greatest benefits would eventually trickle up and accrue to the wealthier people. Just as they benefit from public schools which provide better employees and customers.
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