re “Shrekli to Be Jailed After Online Bounty on Hillary Clinton’s Hair”

 

The New York Times, September 14, 2017

 

 

 

I emailed my wife as follows.

 

 

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This Martin Shkreli guy sounds a bit weird and he may be guilty, as he has already been found to be (but I wonder). There is no reason, however, for revoking his bail and imprisoning him now.

In a maximum security prison.

No prior criminal record. He’s a “danger to society”?

These judges are sententious fussbudgets devoid of common sense as regards — or any insight whatsoever into — actual people, with all their foibles.

There are usually explanations for odd, off-putting human behavior that doesn’t actually result in harm to anyone. Judges refuse, 99.9 percent of the time, to hear them. They — as an individual I met at a funeral once said about one of his relatives whose husband had died — lack a “humanity gene.”

Petty indiscretions which offend their sense of propriety are pretty much the same as egregious crimes in their book. If there was such a book, it wouldn’t be good or enlightening reading. Maimonides it wouldn’t be. Think Boy Scout or Girl Scout Handbook.

 

 

— Roger W. Smith

  September 2017