In Texas, Apparently You Can Legally Shoot People You Think Steal From You

Wow. Just Wow.

That seems to be the consensus all over the Internet, except among certain circles in Texas, apparently, over a jury verdict that acquited a guy named Ezekiel Gilbert of a murder charge.

A Texas jury said under the state's laws, it was OK
for this guy to shoot an escort because she
wouldn't have sex with him.  

Our buddy Ezzie found an escort on Craigslist --Oh Boy! -- who was available for the low, low price of $150.

With any bargain, you get what you pay for and Ezzie quickly learned that the $150 he paid the escort didn't include sex.

So Ezzie did what any red blooded American would do when they feel like they were cheated out of their hard earned cash.

Ezzie shot the escort, Lenora Ivy Frago, 23, in the neck, leaving her paralyzed. She died seven months later.

According to San Antonio Express News, Ezzie says he's really, really sorry, because he just meant to injure Lenora, not kill her. He is a law abiding man, he seems to say because his defense was that under Texas law, it is OK "to use deadly force to recover property during a nighttime theft."

I guess Ezzie was smart enough to hire the escort at night. If he wanted some afternoon delight, he might have run afoul of the law.

This verdict seems to make it open season on people who are perceived to be stealing stuff. At least after dark in Texas.

The prosecutors in the case said the law was intended for law abiding citizens, and it doesn't cover trying to make somebody do something illegal, like prostitution. The implication here is even prosecutors might think it's OK to shoot somebody for stealing something at night, even if it isn't worth much.

Follow this law, and this jury verdict to its logical conclusion, I guess it's OK to shoot someone in Texas after he steals a penny from your coat pocket, as long as the theft occured after the sun went down.

What about other forms of theft?  Can you shoot a banker if she altered your mortgage to make you pay a bit more?  Can you shoot members of a legislature if they raise taxes, and you don't think the tax increase is fair?

What if you think somebody stole from you, and you shoot him, but it turned out you just misplaced what you thought was stolen? Are you still OK legally?

For his part Ezzie had this to say, according to the San Antonio Express News

"I sincerely regret hte loss of life of Ms. Frago...... I've been in a mental prison the past four years of my life. I have nightmares. If I see guns on TV where people are getting killed, I change the channel."

Poor baby. Four years of Ezzie's life stolen because he "innocently" shot someone to death. Maybe he could shoot someone else to make himself feel better. It might even be legal in Texas

Dumbest People Nominee: Trying To Pull Down Huge Tree With Old Buick

Behold the following video. It shows a bunch of morons trying to pull down a huge tree using a 1980s vintage Buick LeSabre.

Yup, that's right. We'll just attach a chain between the Buick's back bumper and this tall, mature tree and pull it down, no problem.  Watch the video to see the world's dumbest people in action. Then, as always, below the video on this page, I'll have a few questions and comments that this whole thing raises.





First of all, what if they actually succeeded at pulling down the tree? Wouldn't it have landed on the Buick? Wouldn't the guy inside get smushed? I smell a Darwin Award here.

Had the tree fallen, what did they propose to do with it then?  It would have fallen on the street or nearby houses. They don't have chainsaws, apparently. Were they just going to leave the tree there?

What about the moron inside the Buick. Doesn't it hurt to get tossed around like that? Then again, no brain no pain.

A nice touch in the video was the moment when the little boy on the bicycle started singing "It's raining car parts" to the tune of the song "It's Raining Men" by the Weathergirls.

You could sort of hear the guys trying to pull down the tree offer suggestions and barking orders as the repeated attempts fail. Great. dumb, probably drunk guys trying to figure this out. It's a wonder they've lived this long.

To be fair, the way the tree shakes, they might have only been trying to pull down a large branch from the tree, not the whole tree. This doesn't make them any less dumb.

If Company Slogans Had To Be Honest.......

I found a great thread on Reddit that asked people to come up with the catch phrases for companies if they all had to be scrupulously honest.

There's a lot of them on the Reddit feed, so if you have time, go through it. A lot of them are pretty entertaining.

Here are some of my favorites:

Is this one of many companies that needs
a new sales logo

Carnival Cruise Lines: "Oh Come on. What are the chances something will happen this time."

Motel 6: We'll leave the light on for you because this is a dangerous neighborhood."

Facebook: We know more about you than you do.

Walmart: Home of 53 registers with only three open.

United Airlines: You wish you would have walked. (Editors note; I will have MUCH MORE on how this tagline is true in an upcoming post.)

Internet Explorer: Your Number One browser for downloading other browsers

Grey Goose Vodka: Tastes the same as Absolut but shows people how rich you are.

Whole Foods: You can't be liberal on cheap food.

Depends: When nature calls, take a message.

This Photo of Police Dog's Last Moments Will Touch Your Heart

The photo in this post touched my heart because it hit so close to home. But it's a beautiful picture.

The Plymouth, Mass. Police Department
pays its respects to Kaiser as he is led
into a building for his final journey.  

Kaiser the police dog served the fine citizenry of Plymouth, Mass. for two year before kidney disease took over.

Kaiser's illness became so bad that the department had to say goodbye and let him go.

As you can see, the men and women of the Plymouth, Mass. Police Department salute Kaiser as he is led into a building for his final journey.

The whole thing stabbed my heart (but in a beautiful way) because Jeff and me recently lost our beloved Bailey the Wonder Dog to kidney failure.

Just as touching as the picture was the statement Kaiser's handler, Plymouth Patrol Officer Jamie Lebretton released.

"Kaiser taught me more about myself and my profession than I could have ever taught him. I feel privileged to have had a front row seat to witness his bravery and heroic actions while serving the people of Plymouth and my brothers and sisters in blue. Although his career was short lived, he made a huge impact that will never be forgotten. Kaiser loved being a police dog and I will miss him dearly."

Given the respect the Plymouth Police Department showed Kaiser, I think the community is being very well served.
 

Thought This Would Happen: Tornado Chasers Run Over by Tornadoes

I heard some sad news today that three professional storm chasers were among the nine people killed by the tornadoes that swept through Oklahoma Friday.

A big Oklahoma tornado about to send a vehicle
containing a Weather Channel chase team flying  

Three other storm chase vehicles got caught in tornadoes, including one with the Weather Channel's Mike Bettes, who suffered relatively minor injuries.

I knew this would happen eventually. I think everyone who knows anything about storm chasing realized this would happen.

There's been an arms race of sorts, with people getting closer and closer to tornadoes,  or even inside them, taking more and more dramatic videos that the public eats up, thereby making plenty of money from their videos.

As a weather geek, I admit I'm one of those who loves those storm videos.  But the whole concept of storm chasing has gotten out of control in recent years. Dozens of chasers regularly converge on large tornadoes, causing traffic jams that would make it hard to escape if the tornado changed directions.

And tornado chasers have been getting involved with increasingly volatile weather situations. Friday's Oklahoma tornadoes were especially sudden and erratic, popping up abruptly and changing directions without rhyme or reason.

Interestingly and tragically, the chasers who died, Tim Samaras, 55, his son Paul Samaras, 24, and Carl Young, 45, were reportedly some of the more safe chasers, a trio who didn't take as many chances as others.

Details on what happened are sketchy. The tornadoes were acting so far out of the ordinary that they might have been caught off guard. Or, they had an escape route but the roads were so clogged with cars that they were trapped.

Cars tossed around in Friday's Oklahoma tornadoes.
Cars are the worst place to be in tornadoes.
Photo by Jim Beckel, The Oklahoman.  

Adding greatly to the traffic woes was some very bad advice some Oklahoma City media outlets gave to the public:  Try to outrun the tornado in your car.  That's the worst thing you could do, as vehicles are easily flung by tornadic winds, and cars stuck in traffic jams surely are not going to outrun a tornado.

Even a building with no basement, which is common in Oklahoma, are much safer than cars.

We were also subjected this week to the aforementioned Mike Bettes of the Weather Channel being tossed about by a tornado, a another storm chaser being smashed up by a farm disintegrating in a tornado and a local television station's storm chasers getting caught in 100 mph winds on the edge of another twister.

The YouTube video of the chasers getting hit by the farm debris had racked up 500,000 hits within two days of it being posted, which demonstrates the popularity of these dramatic videos.

There have been other close misses among storm chasers in recent days. One chase team got themselves caught inside a very strong Kansas tornado last week, but survived to give triumphant television interviews on the morning news and talk shows.

Television networks eat up these dramatic tornado videos, too. It's great for the ratings.

I don't know if this will change the risks tornado chasers take. It's big business, and money talks. You can take vacation trips in which the general public can chase tornadoes for a week.

I chase the admittedly much milder storms where I live in Vermont myself.  I don't think I take too many unnecessary risks. I won't drive over flooded roads. In the rare cases when we have potentially tornadic supercells, I try to avoid getting myself in the middle of these storms.

But, like so many others, I'm fascinated by big storms, both the garden variety ones in Vermont or the giant ones in Oklahoma.

We have to remember to be careful, but human nature makes it such that some of us will get too close. To our great peril.

Gorgeous Color Film of 1939 Manhattan Surfaces

A video appeared on YouTube about a week ago that shows a rare, gorgeous color view of Manhattan, taken in the summer of 1939.

According to the notes beneath the YouTube page the video is on, the film was done on 16 mm Kodachrome by Jean Vivier, a French tourist.

Maybe part of it is the score they've added to the film, but the images give such a romantic vision of New York.  It makes me wish I was there.

People sure dressed better in those days than they do now, don't they? I love the womens' hats in particular. And why can't we men find such gorgeous fedoras anymore?

Gorgeous Skies And Fun Quirks in Yankton, South Dakota

I'm continuing my tour of southern South Dakota with my hosts the Moderegers - my husband Jeff's side of the family.

The massive Gavin Point Dam on the Missouri River
near Yankton, S.D. with an even bigger sky above this week.  

My husband Jeff took me out here this week to visit the family, many of whom live in the pleasant southeastern South Dakota city of Yankton, in the Missouri River valley.

I continue to be fascinated by the big sky here. They say Montana is Big Sky country, but South Dakota has to be in the same league as Montana.

As proof, Jeff took me to the Gavin Point Dam, which is on the Missouri River near Yankton. And later,  Drew, the son of Jeff's cousin Shann, took us for a spin on his boat on Lewis and Clark Lake, which is behind the Gavin Point Dam.

The light was exquisite. On the boat ride, small showers and thunderstorms erupted in the distance, and a strong sun peeked in and out of the billowing white and black clouds. Orange sandstone cliffs ring the lake, adding to the color.

I could have stayed out there all night, though I'm sure Drew wouldn't have appreciated being out on that water as it got cold overnight.

I continue to find a number of quirks in the area that just adds to the fun.

A beautiful sky on Wednesday on Lewis and Clark Lake
behind the Gavins Point Dam on the Missouri River
near Yankton, South Dakota.  

At and near the Gavin Point Dam, I noticed a lot of people, mostly high school age boys, armed with bows and arrows.  Did we stumble upon a Boy Scout camp?

Nope. They shoot fish with arrows here. They even do it from overlooks near the dam. They shoot the fish, and a line attached to the bow and arrow allows the fishermen to haul the fish up the cliff into their hands.

The parks around the dam even have a number of helpful kiosks where people can clean and cook their fish.  

Everybody in Yankton goes to Charlie's Pizza, so we did too after we finished the boat ride.  It looks like it hasn't been redecorated since the 1950s or 60s, which makes it a cool place.

For some reason the sign out front has a badly rendered painting of the famous picture of Marilyn Monroe with an air vent lifting up her white dress.

In the Charlie's Pizza men's room, there are two photographs of Marilyn Monroe and a movie poster from the 1950s  camp classic "Attack Of The 50 Foot Tall Woman."

There is no explanation as to why that is.

Back at home in Vermont, almost all the flower gardens have mulch in the beds, surrounding the plants.

In South Dakota, nobody uses mulch. Instead, all the flower beds, and I mean virtually all of them, have smooth round river rocks, averaging about the size of hens eggs in the gardens. The rocks supposedly hold down the moisture and block weeds like mulch is intended to do.

A garden in back of the Modereger home in
Yankton,  South Dakota, after I planted a few
perennials. They use river rocks for mulch in South
Dakota, not mulch, like in New England.  

I planted a few perennials and annuals in the Moderegers' garden, just to feel useful. I wonder how the rocks will affect the plants. Will the rocks collect heat and cook the plants on hot, sunny days?

It seems to work for everybody, though, and peoples gardens look healthy enough.  And the soil beneath the rocks seemed rich and moist enough when I did some planting.

The rocks must be mostly a South Dakota aesthetic.  Out here, it's dry and windy and sunny, which evokes the bleached, vaguely barren look the rocks give. It works here. New England is damp, cool and woodsy, so mulch seems to fit the surroundings more.

We'll give it a go.

Two days from now, I'll head back to Vermont. I'll miss Yankton. Part of it is because I spent the week being a slug. I didn't do anything useful or productive and slept in mornings until what for me is the crack of noon. (I'd get up at around 7 or 8)  In Vermont, I usually get up at 4 a.m.

But a large part of why I will miss Yankton once I leave is it is so comfortable here. It's not a flashy place. Yankton is well kept, productive and energetic enough, but definitely not frenetic.  It doesn't  feel like everybody is in intense competition with each other in Yankton, like it does in the dreaded "Back East."

People work hard here, that's for sure. But they work hard because they want to feel good about themselves. They want to provide for others. They want to contribute. They want to make sure everything is in order and working.  But they're not trying to impress others as much as you sometimes see on the East Coast.

All this is a generalization, of course, based on my first impressions and clouded by my lack of expertise.

But first impressions matter, and I'm sure getting a good one in Yankton.