Norwegians! Arizona is hazardous to your health!

Alexander Dale Oen (photo by David Gray Landov)

Let me open today's post with sincere condolences to the family of this outstanding athlete who died inexplicably in his Flagstaff hotel shower after a training session.  He was training for the upcoming Olympic games in London, and had been doing remarkably well, according to his coach.   After not showing up for dinner, his roomates went up to the room to find him in the shower.  No trauma was noted, no health condition was known...and the autopsy has not yielded any new developments as to what may have been the cause.  He was only 26, and from what I hear, was a wonderful and charitable person and a dedicated athlete.  


We just never know when our time is coming, and it is at least somewhat more of a comfort when such a tragedy strikes someone who is at least truly living their dreams.  Not that it makes it less painful.  It just makes the life that is lost more "whole", if I can put it that way.  It is just plain sad.


On another bizarre note involving Arizona, we have the case of John Kristoffer Larsgard, who is now serving 7 1/2 years for accidentally going the wrong way down a one-way street, freaking out, nearly hitting some people at a festival, getting beaten in the face by an angry pedestrian, and finally coming to a stop while police drew their guns, forcing him from the car.   This all happened in September of 2011.  

John Kristoffer Larsgard, after getting hit
by a pedestrian, through his car window.

I haven't found out if the guy who hit Larsgard has been charged with assaut and battery, but so far, it does not look like it. 

Anyway, my point is how strangely different our countries are when it comes to meting out "punishment".  Here's a guy, who made a mistake, tried to get away from a crowd (which contained someone who did this to him), was driving erratically in order to make his escape (while blood was flowing from his face), only to be captured up by the local police, and somehow found guilty of a crime deserving of 30 years in prison (um, this is more than the maximum term in prison in Norway for ANY crime...Breivik excluded), but out of the kindness of Arizona's justice system, he's only going to get 7 1/2 years.  Did I mentioned he was with his visiting mother, a nurse from Oslo?  Did I mention he was a med student in Chicago?  The prosecution brought up other instances in which Mr. Larsgard had been involved in previously unseemingly bad behavior over the past couple of years, none of which involved convictions, but were used to paint a picture of some monster behind the wheel of a lethal weapon.  

Again, he was also being mobbed by apparently violent people (note: his face) who were frightened by his poor driving, so...oh yeah, "Stand your Ground" only works if it's a gun you're using, not a car.  

At any rate, my point is that in this country, we need to get a grip on what the word reasonable means.  We love the word extreme.  Extreme sports.  Extreme chili!  Extreme savings! Extreme trucks (complete with truck-nutz)!  Extreme alcoholic drinks.  Extreme energy drinks.  Extreme wrestling.  You name it, we do it with extreme!  Even our sentencing.  Extreme does not require much thought or discussion.  Just go to the end of the spectrum and there you are.  Even powerful Republicans are in fear of losing their seats because they are not extreme enough!  But the word extreme is used synonomously with standing by your convictions.  Those who do not behave in an extreme fashion must be wishy-washy and wimpy.

See what I mean?

Being reasonable means that you have to engage the deeper thought process.  You have to consider context.  C'mon, America!  Weren't you enamored by "Les Miserables?"  Show the love!  Or did you miss the point?  

So, Mr. Larsgard will spend the next 7 1/2 years of his life, "thinking about what he has done", instead of finishing med school, while his mother returns home, feeling like she has abandoned her son.  He will cost Arizona hundreds of thousands of dollars.  He will be a benefit to no-one for the next 7 1/2 years.  The fallout is pretty enormous, if you ask me.  America gets painted like a tyrannical country where armed police run rampant and extreme justice is carried out in order to mollify mobs of extremists.  


I suppose the upside of this were the many comments on any website carrying the story by folks who actually believe that indeed, this was a miscarriage of justice.  I know that Norwegians are really being dragged through the ringer of the cultural mirror they are looking through during the Breivik trial.  So much about their country and countrymen, their political system, their social system, so very much is being brought into question while their justice system tries to make sense out of that horrible tragedy and the twisted (or not?) mind that carried it out with no remorse.  Nothing, nothing is black and white.  I really don't care what it is your are talking about.  And for that, Norwegians are to be given due credit for trying to get at what is reasonable.  


It's a long, hard, painful, intellectually and morally exhausting road, but when it is over, no rock will have been unturned, and what emerges will at least have stood the test of rigorous vetting.  It is not an efficient process.  But, we know what haste makes.  


I hope Mr. Larsgard can appeal.  I wish the Norwegian government would intervene, but alas....they do not interfere in the justice systems of other countries.  And if Mr. Larsgard ends up serving the entire 7 1/2 years, I hope he can forgive us.  As an American, though, it sure gets old having to keep asking for forgiveness for our actions.