Saturday, May 5, 2018
I think that Vermont erred in this case, where a seemingly unstable young man has made ominous threats to public safety. His lawyer, dismissive of the gravity of the situation said, "Jack simply had thoughts about committing these crimes, wrote in his journal about committing the crimes, wrote his fantasy plans, and he purchased a gun.” The Vermont Supreme Court held that he did not meet the standard for attempted murder, the most serious crime that he was charged with. “An ‘attempt’ under Vermont law requires an intent to commit a crime, coupled with an act that, but for an interruption, would result in the completion of a crime." (Note that the legal standards for criminal conduct vary by state. New York has a bit more grit than granola in its statutes.) However, his lawyer's words seal the issue for me; purchasing the gun was the act one step short of "the completion of a crime," when he has otherwise manifested his criminal intent.
But, I think that the article tries to grasp the wrong end of the stick, weighing speech vs. conduct, a continuing issue in First Amendment jurisprudence. An 18-year old, displaying erratic and hostile behavior, acquired a deadly weapon. Stop right there. Without a weapon present, we can turn law school classes and debating societies loose on the definition of criminal liability. However, Vermont allowed a dangerous mix of man and means. The young man, if unarmed, might foul his local community and the Internet with his ravings, but he would likely be only a danger to himself.
The
space is limited, 4 two tops and 9 stools at an L-shaped counter. Maoz
had more seating, but maybe the Upper West Side has more expatriated
Israelis than Hawaiians.
The New York Times has
followed me to Africa electronically, for better or worse. I found
this story interesting: "He Wrote Disturbing Plans for a
School Shooting. But Was That a Crime?" https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0
I think that Vermont erred in this case, where a seemingly unstable young man has made ominous threats to public safety. His lawyer, dismissive of the gravity of the situation said, "Jack simply had thoughts about committing these crimes, wrote in his journal about committing the crimes, wrote his fantasy plans, and he purchased a gun.” The Vermont Supreme Court held that he did not meet the standard for attempted murder, the most serious crime that he was charged with. “An ‘attempt’ under Vermont law requires an intent to commit a crime, coupled with an act that, but for an interruption, would result in the completion of a crime." (Note that the legal standards for criminal conduct vary by state. New York has a bit more grit than granola in its statutes.) However, his lawyer's words seal the issue for me; purchasing the gun was the act one step short of "the completion of a crime," when he has otherwise manifested his criminal intent.
But, I think that the article tries to grasp the wrong end of the stick, weighing speech vs. conduct, a continuing issue in First Amendment jurisprudence. An 18-year old, displaying erratic and hostile behavior, acquired a deadly weapon. Stop right there. Without a weapon present, we can turn law school classes and debating societies loose on the definition of criminal liability. However, Vermont allowed a dangerous mix of man and means. The young man, if unarmed, might foul his local community and the Internet with his ravings, but he would likely be only a danger to himself.
. . .
We
had a busy morning in Nairobi today before our evening departure for
home. We first visited the Giraffe Center, run by the African Fund For
Endangered Wildlife Kenya LTD., devoted to rescuing and resettling
giraffes. The Center is home to 12 giraffes, who require 10 acres each
to forage. You can pet and feed them snacks, which arouses a lot of
amusement and photographs.
A
short distance away was the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trusts' Orphans'
Project, which rescues baby elephants, nurtures them and trains them to
return to the wild. Currently, 29 baby elephants are contained on the
grounds and even Grandpa Grumpy had to smile when a large group of them
came running up to be fed their own baby formula from large bottles held
by staff members. It supposedly takes at least 5 years to prepare
an orphaned baby elephant to go back to the bush, which the Project
claims it does with success. As with the giraffes, everyone pushed
forward to get shots that are meant to impress friends and family back
home.
. . .
The
trip home was a bit convoluted and very long. At 7:40 PM Saturday, we
got on United flight 9764, the same one that deposited us in Nairobi on
April 23rd. After Nairobi, 9764 continues to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania's
capital, before turning around and flying back to Zurich, nonstop. That
was our path. My young bride and I were not seated next to each other
in order to find the most legroom. She had a very interesting seatmate,
a young Maasai man, who, unlike almost all of his 29 siblings (by three
mothers), was educated and living and working outside his village. He
is employed in Amboseli National Park in wildlife conservation and is on
the way to the US for conferences on the subject, first stop New York.
Oh, boy, he has never been out of Kenya before.
We
took off at exactly 8:00 PM for the one hour flight to Dar es Salaam.
There, people got off, people got on. The flight to Zurich departed at
10:30 PM and took 8 hours and 35 minutes, leaving us at the Zurich
airport at 6:05 AM local time (one hour earlier than East Africa) to
wait for United flight 135, departing at 10:20 AM for Newark. The
transatlantic leg took another 8 hours and 25 minutes, landing at 12:45
PM EDT Sunday. It all added up to far too much time when all I should
have needed was "Beam me up, Scotty."
I
used some of the long layover in the Zurich airport productively,
however, by comparison shopping for scotch. I bought a bottle of
Glenfiddich Select Cask single malt, which is available for sharing.
Lindt's chocolates, a toothsome Swiss product, was offered in a
variety of bundles, but they lost the home field advantage to Costco, where I recently bought a 600 gram (21.2 oz.) package of truffles for less than half the (special sale) price at duty free.
Watches were, of course, prominently displayed.
Watches were, of course, prominently displayed.
Swiss precision demanded that they all be set to the right time.
Monday, May 7, 2018
Among
the many contrasts between Kenya and the United States, I thought of
one less obvious one - In Kenya, they put poachers in jail; in the US,
we put them in high office.
. . .
In
reviewing my writings for the past two weeks, I see that I ignored two
of my favorite subjects: Jews and food. Let's dispose of Jews first, as
has often been the case in Western Civilization. There were none. Our
fellow travelers were not Jewish. No members of our tour staff were
Jewish, although two of the frequently changed drivers were Muslims,
descendants of Omani traders who settled in Kenya early in the 20th
century. No hotel or restaurant personnel were observed wearing a Star
of David (✡️). While our path
criss-crossed that of many other tour groups in their four-wheel drive
vehicles, we never interacted with any of them. For all we know, the
entire membership of the Great Neck Jewish Center may have passed us by
unrecognized.
Food
was present, however. Every meal except our last Friday dinner in
Nairobi was included in our tour package. With so much time spent in
the bush, a search for alternative venues would have been fruitless.
When we were on long drives to a new destination, we were provided box
lunches by the establishment that we came from. Two lunches in Nairobi
were the only restaurant meals away from our lodgings. Many meals were
buffet, with eggs cooked to order at breakfast and a pasta station at
lunch. Service was more than attentive. I had to struggle at times to be allowed to get my own cup of tea.
The
food was always palatable and in ample quantity. The flavors were
generally familiar and safe, showing traces of the Indian presence in
East Africa. Now an influential and prosperous minority, thousands of
Indians came to the region in the 19th century as indentured workers on
the Kenya-Uganda railway. At the table, curry, cardamom and chapatis
were fairly commonplace.
The most memorable meal, dissimilar to all the others, was at the Carnivore Restaurant, Langata Road, Nairobi, where, in its words "Whole joints of meat - leg of lamb and pork, ostrich, rump of beef, sirloin, rack of lamb, spare ribs, sausages, chicken wings, skewered kidneys, even crocodile - are roasted on traditional Maasai swords over a huge, charcoal pit." The skewers are brought to the table and carved to order, returning as many times as you choose. Such enterprises around here are labelled Churrascaria or Brazilian steakhouses, accurately or not. Carnivore makes tangential reference to this in its signature cocktail, the Dawa, consisting of vodka, fresh lime juice, sugar and honey, akin to Caipirinha, Brazil's national cocktail, made with cachaça (sometimes called Brazilian rum), sugar and lime.
The most memorable meal, dissimilar to all the others, was at the Carnivore Restaurant, Langata Road, Nairobi, where, in its words "Whole joints of meat - leg of lamb and pork, ostrich, rump of beef, sirloin, rack of lamb, spare ribs, sausages, chicken wings, skewered kidneys, even crocodile - are roasted on traditional Maasai swords over a huge, charcoal pit." The skewers are brought to the table and carved to order, returning as many times as you choose. Such enterprises around here are labelled Churrascaria or Brazilian steakhouses, accurately or not. Carnivore makes tangential reference to this in its signature cocktail, the Dawa, consisting of vodka, fresh lime juice, sugar and honey, akin to Caipirinha, Brazil's national cocktail, made with cachaça (sometimes called Brazilian rum), sugar and lime.
Here's my intake: Beef, ostrich, lamb, crocodile, chicken wings, lamb sausage, ox balls (or so they said), beef ribs, spare
ribs (best of all) and chicken legs. The ostrich tasted like too well
done beef (more carbon than meat), the crocodile like chewy chicken, and
the ox balls, 1" discs, like a mild sausage. I passed on turkey,
sausages, rabbit and pork. The price for a meal is around $35, but was
embedded in our tour. It seems to be a favorite with tour groups,
especially with a few Dawas.
Tuesday, May 8, 2018
Speaking of food, the 2018 Top 100+ European Restaurant List is out if your trust fund is underutilized. http://www.opinionatedaboutdin
. . .
After bonjour, guten tag, or nǐ hǎo, most Americans abroad were once likely to say, "Do you speak English?" Now, inevitably, it is "What is your wi-fi password?"
. . .
. . .
After bonjour, guten tag, or nǐ hǎo, most Americans abroad were once likely to say, "Do you speak English?" Now, inevitably, it is "What is your wi-fi password?"
. . .
Speaking
of etiquette, I had a welcome surprise in the mail -- a thank you card
from a bride and groom, or a soon-to-be bride and groom. The wedding is
later this month, conflicting with another event of ours. Along with
our regrets, we sent a gift from their registry. To their everlasting
credit, David and Erica did not wait until they had run out of
diversions far in the future to take on the burden of writing to obscure
relatives and acquaintances. They got the gift; they wrote the note. I
wonder if we can expect the same from Harry and Meghan.
Wednesday, May 9, 2018
Now, let me try and understand this. Israel is safer when Iran's nuclear program is unrestrained?
. . .
If
you haven't renewed your passport, but are still in the mood for
award-winning dining, check out the joints honored by the James Beard
Foundation.
. . .
My
lunch at pokebab, 2047A Broadway, may be cited as the best poke
(po-kay) that I have ever had. Of course, it was the first and only
poke that I have ever had. It is an import, relatively new to the Holy
Land. Says Wikipedia, “Poke is a raw fish salad . . . in Hawaiian cuisine.” pokebab
itself is a week old, having replaced a Maoz falafel joint, but there
are already lots of competitors in the general vicinity, Red Poke, Poke Chan,
Poke Bowl, Poke A Bowl, Poke Fun, Poketeria, and so on.
I
had the Signature, $11.95 as are all the 9 versions on the menu. It had a base of
brown rice covered with cubes of ahi tuna, scallion, seaweed salad,
cucumber, chili flakes, edamame, roasted sesame oil, sesame seed,
Hawaiian salt, red onion, masago (capelin fish roe), radish sprouts,
fresh ponzu (tart citrus-based sauce). The poke is made in front of you
and other spices and sauces may be added at the end of the line, so I
had them toss in some red stuff and green stuff. In all, it resembled
an explosion at a sushi bar.
Were Norma and Rob Gelb, SoCals via Great Neck on your trip? They’ve posted many pictures that look strikingly similar to yours
ReplyDelete