August 3. 2009 by Dick.

Two area men denied their role in the fatal alcohol and drug overdose of a Vermont teen last month. The men, one from Sheldon Springs and the other from Highgate, each pled not guilty of manslaughter for the death of 19-year old Jeremy Chapple. who died after guzzling the booze and Lorazepam they sold to him in an apartment in Swanton Village.

Local police know that apartment as a juvenile gathering place.

According to the St Albans Messenger, one of the men charged “only has one forgery conviction on his criminal record.” The judge released that man without bail or curfew although he can’t leave Franklin County without court permission.

The second man is currently serving house arrest for armed robbery. The Corrections Department is unlikely to release him now.

Lordy, Lordy™.

The paper reported that the first defendant sold four tablets of Lorazepam to Mr. Chapple for $1 each. The other defendant bought him a jug of Jack Daniels. Depressed after breaking up with his girlfriend, Mr. Chapple consumed them in a couple of hours.

Sad story. Sad ending.

But it might not be manslaughter.

It might be murder.

“The death of Jeremy Chapple on June 8 is a tragedy of the highest degree — in other words, an avoidable tragedy,” Franklin County Caring Communities, Rural Partnerships, and the Grand Isle County Clean Team, the primary drug and alcohol coalitions of northwestern Vermont, said in a statement after the court proceedings. “Those who think the only danger that comes from underage drinking is an alcohol-related crash need look no further than this case to see otherwise. Those who believe that supplying an underage individual with alcohol will not lead to trouble for themselves can also learn an important lesson from this. Finally, this death should serve as a clear need for swift action in all our communities when it comes to prescription drug abuse.

“It is our sincerest hope that today’s arraignments will be an important step down a path that helps our whole northwest Vermont community learn important lessons about teens, alcohol and prescription drug abuse, and the need to be ever-vigilant in the protection of our children and young adults. The story of Jeremy Chapple is a story every parent should pay heed to and use as an opportunity to discuss such issues with their children in age-appropriate ways.”

Learn important lessons?

That politically correct statement is too long on hand holding and education and too short on responsibility.

Contrast those semantics with the actions of crusading Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice who charged a drunk driver with murder. “He had a completely depraved indifference to human life,” she told 60 Minutes, “because he acted so recklessly others were likely to die.”

Drunk driving kills more than 13,000 Americans every year despite the publicity, the education campaigns, and the apologetic hand wringing by drug and alcohol coalitions.

7-year-old Katie Flynn was a flower girl at her aunt’s Long Island wedding three years ago. That beautiful day ended in tragedy when a 24-year-old insurance salesman with a blood alcohol content more than three times the legal limit drove three miles the wrong way on the highway before crashing head-on into the Flynns’ vehicle. He killed their driver and tore little Katie’s head off.

The same year Katie Flynn died, Forbes Magazine named Nassau County “the safest region in the United States, with the lowest crime rate.”

District Attorney Rice charged the insurance salesman with Murder, Vehicular Manslaughter, Aggravated DWI, and some lesser included charges. The jury decided that that drunk driver didn’t need hand holding. The jury decided he didn’t need education. The jury decided he needed to take responsibility for decapitating a 7-year old child while he was drunk. Convicted, he got 25 years to life in prison last week. For murder.

Mr. Chapple was an avid outdoorsman who loved hunting, fishing, trapping, four-wheeling, dirt bike riding and playing basketball. And, apparently, alcohol and drugs.

Were the Vermont defendants any less indifferent to Mr. Chapple’s likely fate than the drunken salesman was to Katie’s?

Who will take responsibility for his death?

Full Disclosure: I helped found, chaired, and still volunteer for the local Franklin County Caring Community chapter. I strongly endorse its mission but I also know there can be no learning without accountability.

Posted in News, Society, PC, Random Access | 1 Comment »

July 6. 2009 by Dick.

The devil didn’t make him do it. His mother did.

Some things you just can’t make up. This one appeared in the local paper last week.

SOMEWHERE NEAR NORTH PUFFIN — A local man told the Sheriff that he used a water pistol to rob the Town Pharmacy because his mother told him to do it.

“Spoony McGowen” (not his real name), 35, is being held on $50,000 bail on charges of assault and robbery with a weapon and felony narcotics possession. The charges show he pointed a black water pistol at the pharmacist and forced him to load a white garbage bag (with red drawstrings) with morphine, OxyContin, and hydromorphone tablets.

The robber said he gave some of the pills to his getaway driver for borrowing his girlfriend’s car for the robbery and that the driver was supposed to split the pills with Mr. McGowen’s mother for her help. She has not been charged.

He could pay $25,000 in fines and spend 15 years in jail for the $566 robbery.

The street value of the OxyContin is more than $18,000.

Far be it from me to indict the school system but ya gotta think Mr. McGowen was poorly served. After all, he said he robbed the drug store because he had heard about all the stimulus money and “he was tired of being broke.”

Mr. McGowen was broke because he had no job.

He had no job not because he has an extensive criminal history but rather because he does not feel satisfied by his educational experience.

He does not feel satisfied by his educational experience because he quit school in 10th grade at age 19.

Apologists have proven that everything from political incorrectness to forces of nature are not our fault. It is our environment that teaches us how to behave. Or our genes. Or our jeans. At any rate, since we cannot control our environment (except how globally warm it gets) or our genes, we bear no responsibility for anything. It’s not our fault we had no ice or water on hand before a hurricane. It’s not our fault we didn’t recognize that our mortgage payments would be twice our incomes. It’s not our fault government-financed jobs programs haven’t put people to work.

And most important, Robbing a drug store with a water pistol wasn’t Mr. McGowen’s fault.

Mr. McGowen does deserve to go to jail, though. You simply can’t rob a drug store and throw your mother under the bus for it without suffering the consequences.

That said, we still have to revamp our schools. After all, Mr. McGowen is really really bad at his job of being a crook. A squirt gun? He must have learnt that in school, doncha think?

After all, It couldn’t have been his fault.

Posted in News, Society, Random Access | 1 Comment »

June 29. 2009 by Dick.

Dear Governor Crist:

I know you have built your career opposing tax increases, so I particularly want to thank you for raising the taxes on cigarettes to help balance the Florida budget and pay off the looming deficit. Goodness knows we can use all the help we can get. You had good company. Every Republican in the state Senate voted for it, their statewide political aspirations and “no new taxes” pledges notwithstanding.

On Wednesday, the cigarette tax here in Florida will quadruple, rising a dollar to $1.34 per pack. That pack of smokes will now cost at least $5.

“I view it more as a health issue than a tax issue,” Governor Crist (R-FL) said in the Orlando Sentinel. “Ronald Reagan used to say if you want to kill something, tax it. It wouldn’t be bad if we killed smoking. It would save a lot of lives.”

As of July 1, Florida’s new cigarette tax is $1.34 per pack. Florida’s cigarette tax has remained unchanged for decades. The increase means this state leaps from fourth-lowest in the nation to bumping out Pennsylvania for twentieth spot. The legislature expects that extra $1 tax to generate more than $900 million a year.

Five bucks a day, up in smoke.

Governor, your keen action has had the beneficial side effect you wanted. My next door neighbor, Henryk, has bought his last carton of cigarettes. “I’m too cheap to pay $50 a carton,” Henk said. “I just won’t pay it.”

Now, really, Henk isn’t nearly as cheap as I am. I quit in 1976 when the nation celebrated the bicentennial and cigarettes jumped to fifty cent a pack. That wasn’t for the (w)rapper. That wasn’t for the excise tax. That was the price. Imagine paying FIVE DOLLARS for a carton of the little cigars I preferred. I’m not sorry I quit. Even starting with the now infinitesimal price I paid a third of a century ago, I figure I have saved more than $30,000 dollars or the price of a couple of small cars.

Henk says he’s done with tobacco.

He’s going back to pot.

It’s cheaper.

Posted in News, Society, Random Access | 2 Comments »