Deanna La June Laney, who murdered two of her sons by bashing their heads with rocks, may be headed for divorce court – but not for the reasons you might think.
Category: Uncategorized
No More Friday Five
“Friday Five”, winner of the 2004 Weblog Awards‘ Best Meme category (“a replicating idea that spread about weblogs”), is no more.
Damned Flu
Late Tuesday afternoon, feeling a little tired, I stopped at Craigville Beach on the way from the office to mind the grandkids.
By the time I got to their house, I was a trainwreck.
My grandchildren hovered around while my DIL tried to convince me to get my germ-ridden self the heck out of her house. The oldest, bless his good little heart, tried to convince her that they could “take care of Grandma” while she went about her business, then he made me the sweetest card.
“Intent”: the New Twinkie Defense?
Yet another incomprehensible verdict from a jury wrapped around the new favorite argument of defense lawyers evereywhere: to convict, the State needs to prove intent.
In other words, a motive, a murder weapon, even a confession are no longer sufficient proof of wrongdoing: the State now has to prove that the person who murders really “intended” to do it all along.
New Hampshire SB 335
Yesterday, the New Hampshire House of Representatives voted by overwhelming majority (223-103) to give adoptees the right to copies of their original birth certificates.
The bill also provides a mechanism for birth parents to approve (or not) the release of contact information to the children they lost to adoption.
Town Elections
For the first time since moving to Mashpee, I attended a candidates’ night sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce and the local newspaper.
Color
We’ve started to see Spring colors in the landscape, yellow from the forsythia and daffodils planted by the thousands in numerous public areas; purple hyacinths, vinca and even violets; blue from Pulmonaria and miniature hydrangeas in flower boxes; white and pink.
Gardener’s Diary
Survived the winter:
Crocus (first to bloom)
Bluettes (second)
Tulips (if the squirrels don’t eat them)
Sweet woodruff
Jacob’s ladder
Woodland geranium
Montauk daisies
Fairy rose
Larkspur
Day lilies
Iris
Beach rose
Bachelor buttons
Lemon thyme
Jury is still out on:
Ornamental grasses
Heather
Lavendar
Foxglove
Lupine
Russian sage
Big question: is this the year that the hydrangeas will bloom?
This is the 100th entry in A Blog For All Seasons!
Femme de Chambre
It’s nice when you can do a job that provides instant gratification.
It’s also nice to not have to worry about a lot of rules, or best practices – a chambermaid’s job is binary and unambiguous, either a room is clean, or it’s not.
Liar, Liar
So, Chappell Hartridge, the outspoken juror on the Martha Stewart case who gloated to the press that her conviction was “a victory for the little guys who lose money in the market”, turns out to be an accused embezzler with a cocaine habit.
Hartridge also has been arrested on assault charges, and three lawsuits have been filed against him. In addition, his son was convicted of attempted robbery in 2000.
This ignoble defender of the “little guy” failed to disclose any of these facts on his jury form, which he was obliged to do, and this has become the basis for an appeal by Stewart’s legal team, which after weeks of ineptitude in court actually decided to mount a defense on her behalf.
Oh, and did I tell you that the organization which claims the Hartridge stole from them is the Bronx Little League?
The AP reports that Hartridge, who was so eager to babble to the press after the Stewart trial, “could not immediately be reached for comment. A listed phone number for him was out of service.”
Meanwhile, the prosecution feels that Stewart’s attorneys “are trying to do a very bad thing”.
Excuse me, but I thought that the whole point of bringing Stewart to trial was the fact that she supposedly lied to the government?
So, I guess it’s okay for a black man to lie, but not an uppity white woman?