This is the guy that was threatened with a life sentence?
If convicted and given the maximum sentence, 48-year-old Yamamoto could end up behind bars for up to 67 years, which would effectively be a life sentence. 39-year-old Ueda could face up to 10 years. The parent company, Typhoon, which continues to operate another popular restaurant next door to the Hump’s former site, could be fined up to $1.2 million.
And led to the @KenatPopehat post about why that wouldn’t be what he got:
http://popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentence-eleventy-million-years/
Now, 24 months in federal prison — even the low-security camp to which whale-sushi-chefs would be sent — is nasty. But it has no relation to the 67 years, or life sentence, bandied about in the press or on the blogs. Plus, betcha he gets less — if he’s convicted at all. I could get him less.
Whale bacon…?
No. That does not sound delicious.
Well, he didn’t get harpooned, dragged abord a ship, and then hacked to death; so it sounds like he got off a lot easier than the whale did.
It’s not a real punishment if he spends no time in jail. Probation means he has to not break any more laws for two years, in other words just behave as a normal person.
I draw the line at eating anything intelligent, even the bit of pig I occasionally consume makes me a bit guilty, as they are the smartest of our domestic animals.
I don’'t know how they get the whale in that Japanese photo to look like that. When I lived in Oslo the local farmer’s market always had fresh whale, it was bright red-pink and fatty and completely revolting. (The reindeer, on the other hand, were nice and lean and yummy, as long as you kept away from the red glowing part at the front.)
enh, pigs would happily eat me if they found me dead in feed trough so mmm bacon.
Almost 15 years ago, I was in Japan and had some whale meat with my co-workers. I’m still feeling sad about that.
The important sidenote is: a lot of whale meat is crazily saturated with mercury.
This chef is a poisoner.
You draw the line but then cross it for a bit of tasty pig meat. I’m filled with similar contradictions myself.
Charles Westley Hume wrote a great essay called “Blind Spots” about this.
pigs are for animals smart but not whale and dolphin smart, that’s how I square it.
Yes – this is how I justified slaughtering, grilling and eating select foreigners born abroad until I was arrested, plead guilty, was on probation for 18 months and now on job applications that ask I have to think about whether or not to disclose this petty misdemeanor.
make sure you cook them well or you get any diseases they have.
I don’t get the intelligence argument when it comes to eating animals. A chickens life is as sacred as a blue whale. However.
There are tens of thousands of whales. Hundreds of millions of pigs. And billions of chickens. So don’t touch the whales.
There are billions of humans.
Don’t you mean long pigs?
And really, this is not being facetious, shouldn’t we be eating refined insect meal? Or at least vegetarian? Energy loss due to entropy as you move up the food chain is immense.
