Meat is Dangerous!

You’ve heard that meat is dangerous. Here’s proof.

A Louisiana woman threw a frozen beefsteak at her boyfriend and hit him in the face.  Police say the 51-year-old man was bleeding when they arrived. The woman was arrested for aggravated assault.

Other frozen foodstuffs and alcohol may have been contributing factors. The alleged perpetrator was said to be upset at the lack of freezer space for cooling her “Tequila Rose” pre-mixed strawberry cream liqueur and tequila blend. Confirmed carnivores will probably blame the strawberries.

 

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Judge Sold Exxon Stock 5 Hours Before Lifting Drilling Ban

Federal Judge Martin Leach-Cross Feldman engaged in an oil spill cleanup of his own last week. Five hours before he rendered his decision blocking the six-month moratorium on deep-water Gulf oil drilling, Judge Feldman sold his personal holdings of Exxon Mobil stock. Exxon was not a party to the case under consideration but will directly benefit from the Judge’s action.

Judge Feldman may have lost a few dollars on the sale; he definitely lost much more in credibility. ”The judicial canons require that judges be aware of their investments,” wrote Steven Mufson and Joe Stephens in the Washington Post:

“Judicial ethicists said that, had he been aware of his holdings, Feldman should have disclosed the ownership or recused himself at the case’s outset if he thought it posed a conflict or raised questions about his impartiality. The court docket indicates that Feldman signed several orders before the sale.

“‘I’ve never heard of a situation like this,’ said Jeffrey M. Shaman, a judicial ethics specialist and law professor at DePaul University.

“The judge may have thought the stock did not create a substantial conflict, legal analysts said, but the fact that he apparently felt compelled to sell the stock and disclose it could be seen as indicating otherwise.

Edible Black History

Rice (Oryza sativa)

Calas (pronounced ca-LA) are fritters made from cooked rice and flour. They were sold in the streets of New Orleans by vendors, women of color, often slaves (who had Sundays free), and remained part of old-time home cooking for many Gulf Coast families of African descent.  The recipe may have been modified in the New World, but the term and concept are said to have been brought to Louisiana by slaves from Ghana.

Not in Tangipahoa Parish!

In Louisiana this week, Keith Bardwell, a Tangipahoa Parish Justice of the Peace, refused to give a marriage license to a local couple because the man is black and the woman is white. You know, just like the president’s parents.

Tangipahoa Parish (motto: “More Than a Great Place to Live”) had a previous claim to fame. It was a location for the TV series based on the film In the Heat of the Night, where a detective was falsely accused of murder because he was black. 

“I’m not a racist,” the JP told the Hammond Daily Star. “I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house. My main concern is for the children.” He didn’t refuse to issue the license, he merely “recused” himself on the basis of this “concern.”

Such “concerns” were explored by the U.S. Supreme Court in Loving v Virginia and found in violation of the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the 14th Amendment. The Court’s decision was unanimous. Chief Justice Earl Warren: “Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.”

Justice Bardwell receives a modest annual salary (about $6,000) to perform the public’s work on a part-time basis. We assume he is sworn to uphold the Constitution, and that is one part of his part-time job he can’t “recuse”" himself from.

Louisiana judges, even JPs, are elected. Mr. Bardwell is Republican, but his act received bipartisan condemnation: