Still Not Guilty

Even if I found out about it after it was too late to decline the prize, I'm still not guilty because I didn't do anything wrong. The wrong was done by other people without my knowledge or consent, so all the blame belongs to them. The fact that I profited by it is irrelevant. I saw an opportunity and took advantage of it, not knowing that, by doing so, I was depriving someone else who was more deserving than I was. If I hadn't accepted that prize there is no guarantee that the jury would have given it to the Shelbyville guy anyway. If there were only the two of us competing, and if the jury really didn't want the Shelbyville guy to have the prize, they might not have given it to anybody.

None of advantages I enjoyed in real life were unfairly taken from anybody else with my knowledge or consent either. No political power ever gave me a job, unless you count the year or so I operated the State Street drawbridge in Cheboygan. Drawbridge operators in Chicago might use political influence to get their jobs, but that's not the way they do it around here. I put my name on a list at the unemployment office and was called in for an interview. I don't know how many other candidates applied for the job, but I would be surprised if any of them were Black because not many Blacks live around here. If there had been a Black candidate, he might even have been given preference over me but, to my knowledge, there weren't any.

Asian carp are an invasive species that were accidently released from a fish farm when a flood broke down the levy that separated their pond from the Mississippi River. They reproduce and grow so quickly that the native predator fish can't keep up with them, and they have become the predominant fish species in much of the Mississippi watershed. I think they are vegetarians, and were originally brought to this country to clean up excessive weed growth in farm ponds. The concern is that, in more northern waters, where the weeds grow slower, they might eat up so many weeds as to adversely affect the whole food chain. (Weeds provide habitat for bugs and stuff that the small fish eat, and the small fish provide food for the bigger fish.) I'm not sure how much damage they have already caused, but I have read that they give the commercial fishermen fits because, when they pull up their nets, all they get is Asian carp, which have almost no commercial value.

Conditions in the Great Lakes are different than in the Mississippi River, so the threat posed by Asian carp is largely unknown, but that doesn't stop people from worrying about it. They want the Army Corps of Engineers to physically close off the Chicago River, which would adversely effect navigation and trade. The Corps has promised to study the issue for another couple of years, but the anti-carp people want action like yesterday. Meanwhile, electric barriers have been put in place that are suppose to keep the carp out, but their effectiveness is a matter of dispute. If the City of Chicago is spending money on this, it's likely because they don't want their river shut off and are desperately looking for alternatives.

All boaters are not fishermen. Getting a large fish in the face while you are piloting a boat is more than an inconvenience, it can be dangerous. I don't know if any serious accidents have been caused yet but, if not, it's only a matter of time. The only good news seems to be that a leaping carp provides a challenging target for a bow and arrow. I understand there are tournaments and everything.