Remember back around Thanksgiving when one of our neighbors had a fire? A few days after, I picked up a gift card to give them, just to help with expenses. I finally had a chance to give it to her Wednesday.
Why did it take so long? Because I didn’t have a phone number to contact them. That, and they were never around when I was thinking about it, which was only when I was leaving to go do something else and happened to glance over at the house.
At any rate, she pulled out of her driveway as I was getting the mail. I waved her down and asked if she was “from the fire house.” She nodded, and I told her I had something for her. I grabbed the gift card and handed it to her, and she was incredibly grateful.
We chatted for a bit. She’s got two kids, a son who’s 7 and a daughter who’s 11. The boy is recovering from a brain bleed a year ago that was misdiagnosed for several days, then not properly treated. But he’s on track to make a full recovery. It’ll just take a long time, and he’s in a wheelchair for a while, too.
To make matters worse, the relative she was buying the house from didn’t maintain insurance like she said she would. She got a quote of $150,000 to repair the house. She and her family are living with her parents now and trying to find an income-based apartment.
Man, I wish we could afford more than a hundred bucks.
Reading
Oxford
Jennifer Crumbley, mother of the Oxford, MI, school attacker, was found guilty of four counts of involuntary manslaughter last week. It’s a first-of-its-kind prosecution of the parents of a school attacker. The prosecutor’s reasoning included the idea that they had bought the gun for him and had failed to properly secure it.
I have thoughts.
Jennifer and James Crumbley absolutely screwed up. They neglected their son’s health and that had tragic consequences.
But they didn’t commit manslaughter, and this prosecution sets a dangerous precedent. In Michigan, you can now be punished for the criminal acts of another.
If the parents are guilty of manslaughter, so then are the school administrators who sent the kid back to class and without searching his backpack.
Should the Crumbleys have bought the kid a gun? Almost certainly not, given what we now know about him. Should they have secured it better? Possibly. I don’t know how it was stored. I did read that the boy made reference in his journals of trying to find out where it was stored, so it sounds like at some point, they were keeping it away from him.
But the crime of manslaughter in Michigan requires the person being charged to discharge the weapon or drive the car or deliver the poison. There’s nothing in there about allowing someone else to kill.
If the Several States want to start charging parents for crimes like this, then they need to write the law to do so and write it as narrowly as possible. Charging someone for the criminal actions of another person is wrong.
It’s worth noting that a judge threw out lawsuits against the school district, saying that Ethan was the direct cause of the shooting and not the school. If that’s the case, how was the trial against the parents allowed to proceed? If they can be held responsible, why can’t the school staff in the meeting be held responsible? Had they insisted on sending him home, he wouldn’t have been able to commit the attack.
Funerals
Ever since I became involved with the funeral industry as a motorcycle escort, I’ve kept up with things in the industry. Even back then, green burials interested me. Traditional cemeteries fill a need, to be sure, but I just found the concept of land stewardship and non-toxic burials to be a very cool mash-up.
Peter and Annica Quakenbush in Michigan thought the same thing, apparently. They bought twenty acres, and talked to the health department and the zoning administrator. The couple worked on getting their operation certified by the Green Burial Council. They surveyed potential customers and built up a waitlist of 245 people. They prepared a conservation easement agreement with an organization.
And then the township passed an ordinance specifically designed to stop the Quakenbush’s business before it ever got off the ground.
The ordinance talks about the potential financial liability the township would face in the event of “orphaned cemeteries,” even though Michigan law requires perpetual funding through trusts. It talks about having to maintain headstones and monuments, even though green cemeteries don’t have headstones and monuments.
This isn’t going to be twenty acres of grass and tombstones. It’s going to be exactly what it already is: twenty acres of white-oak and white-pine forest with some paths laid out. It’s almost like the township board didn’t read anything the Quakenbushes gave them.
The Quakenbushes have taken the township to court through the Institute for Justice, a not-for-profit public interest law firm. They ask that the ordinance be ruled unconstitutional under the Michigan Constitution and that they be allowed to operate their cemetery under existing laws. Other than attorney fees, they’re only asking for nominal damages of $1 per defendant.
I wish them well in their efforts. There’s no reason for the township to take the actions they have. You can read the IJ complaint here for more information. Learn more about green burials at the Green Burial Council.
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