Sunday Morning Coming Down

The non indictment of Darren Wilson is hardly a surprise given the presentation by the State's Attorney in the case. I served on federal grand juries twice and you never heard cases where the evidence wasn't really overwhelming.  Motion pictures of drug deals going down, airplane fights, with witnesses and more witnesses, illegal gun sales where the ATF agents testified.  And so it went. I don't remember the U.S. Attorney ever bringing in the subject of the indictment to explain his side of the story to muddy up the water or bringing in witnesses that disagreed with the case he was laying out. At the end of the presentation and laying out the indictment for the judge, you were sure the bad guy was the bad guy, the law had been broken and something was going to be done about it.  Probable cause isn't guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.  This time it looks like the Grand Jury was functioning as a trial jury and the State Attorney was prosecutor, defense attorney and ...

Next week I think I am going to enroll in a class to learn how to brew beer.  More than a few years ago I bought a Mr. Beer Kit.  I followed the instructions and made eight quarts of beer.  The process took a while and after the beer was made I drank the beer.  The India Pale Ale was the wort you got with the kit.  In the end it was beer and pizza goes better with beer.  I probably could have aged the beer longer and made it during cooler weather.  It would have tasted better or maybe more like other beer I've had. I used to donate platelets at a Red Cross Blood Center.  You are not supposed to sell blood.  If you lived in a middle class neighborhood, you can made a donation and they give you a voucher for lunch at a brew pub.  Lunch and a beer was a treat.  The "homebrew" would have knocked me on my ass had I proceeded to the bogo special.  Being a pint down sort of helped I'm sure moved the process along. I have found a l...

Ray Rice, NFL Footballer,  and infamous for a videotaped domestic violence incident in a casino elevator, had his indefinite suspension from the NFL reduced virtually to time served.  The arbitrator in the case a former federal judge ruled that expanding the punishment from two games, to a virtual life sentence was basically a case of double jeopardy.  She felt the evidence showed Rice was truthful in the initial hearing and that the ruling by the league what arbitrary and an overreach by the commissioner in disciplining the player. The Baltimore Raven's fired Rice from the team.  He is now a free agent without a team, and at least for the time being and probably for a lot longer, maybe indefinitely he won't be playing football.  The ruling on his suspension will mean little unless he can get his old job with the NFL back. Adrian Peterson, NFL Footballer, has a long term suspension from the league still in force for striking his kid with a switch and raising...

Somewhere around fifty years ago my older sister called and wanted to know if I wanted to work helping in the dish room at Plentywood Farm where she worked.  It was Thanksgiving, they were going to be very busy and were short of bodies.  $1.25 @ hour cash for clearing and rinsing dishes before they were put through the dish washing machine.  I sort of became the silverware specialist sorting the utensils and rinsing them carefully after they had soaked in soapy water and down the belt where Bob Nelson put the holder through the machine.  This process went on and on.  My mentor, a very old lady would pick up scraps off the plates for her dog.  The dog never had it so good.  Where do you go after Prime Rib Scraps and Prime Rib Bones. I missed dinner with family that year, but found out sometimes the help got fed very well if they worked on holidays and was thankful because washing dishes at "The Farm" paid better than the allowance for washing the...

The  Isabella Tiger Moth  ( Pyrrharctia isabella ) can be found in many cold regions, including the Arctic. The banded  Woolly Bear  larva emerges from the egg in the fall and overwinters in its  caterpillar  form, when it literally freezes solid. It survives being frozen by producing a  cryoprotectant  in its tissues. In the spring it thaws out and emerges to  pupate . Once it emerges from its pupa as a moth it has only days to find a mate. In most temperate climates, caterpillars become moths within months of hatching, but in the  Arctic  the summer period for vegetative growth – and hence feeding – is so short that the Woolly Bear must feed for several summers, freezing again each winter before finally pupating. Some are known to live through as many as 14 winters. [1] Thank you Wikipedia and NATURE.

The Atlanta Falcons, New Orleans Saints, and Carolina Panthers all have a chance to make the playoffs with a losing record by winning the NFC South.even though their records are 4-7 There are other teams with even worse records.  Jacksonville Jaguars, 1-10 and until last week the Oakland Raiders were on a roll to be perfectly futile with a good chance to go win less for the entire season. The last Bears Packer game was beyond ugly.  Competitive teams and games are needed or the league will just be the delivery system for fantasy football leagues which is the coming method for gambling on the sport.  I remember the APBA baseball board game and remember betting 25 cents on the games which were based on previous season statistics and the roll of the dice. Attendance at live games isn't what it used to be.  The price of tickets, parking, food and time are conspiring to keep people at home where the price of everything is more manageable and if one game sucks you ca...

You might have thought that the President's ideas on immigration reform would rate fifteen minutes on nationwide tv.  It did, but the nationwide networks that interuppted programing were Univision, Telemundo, Fox, CNN, and MSNBC, and the China's English Channel way up the cable. Reflecting on the announcement by the President, maybe it could have been published in the CFR and forgotten.  How long will it take for the forms to be developed, fees determined, and background checks completed? The 113th Congress is already celebrating Thanksgiving.  The 114th Congress starts on paper January 3, 2015.  Forty days and the clock is running. Maybe the best way to deal with the immigration problem would be both a fund raiser and a fast track to reform. No fee waivers, $2,000 and a clear background check and you get an entry into a lottery, with the prize being a green card.  The number of winners to be determined.  An improved lottery would allow folks to buy...