Thursday, April 17, 2008
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Well, well, Spring has sprung. 75 degrees, and I'm enjoying every drop of sunshine. All right, so I hope everyone did their taxes and can get something back from Uncle Sam. In any event, I want say a few things about yesterday's SCOTUS ruling about lethal injection. For those who were living under a rock, the high court ruled that lethal injection (the most common for of execution in the US) did not violate the Constitution's 8th Amendment, which provides for safeguards against "cruel and unusual punishment". Let me get one thing clear. There is nothing, nothing kind or common about capital punishment. It is barbaric, savage, and antithetical to all that this country should stand for. But on the flip side, this is a court working for a man, who as governor of Texas, executed 405 inmates in 6 years. No governor of Texas (or of any other state in the country's history) had ever signed that many death warrants. Yet Texas has one of the highest murder rates in the country, whereas Michigan, which has never executed a person in 171 years, has one of the lowest murder rates, even if you factor Detroit into the equation. I welcome those who disagree with me to speak up, but before you do, answer this question for me. Why do we kill people to show that killing is wrong?
Currently Reading
Robert Browning's Poetry (Norton Critical Editions)
By Robert Browning
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4hcCs78_kE
Ok, poetry time. I hope you guys enjoy this one.The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the A gaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) "Dover Beach"
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
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Comments (6)
It is interesting that our country, the epitome of democracy and freedom, continues to execute prisoners. Not only were the methods of execution barbaric, the electric chair and gas chamber, but they continue the barbarism. The justice system is flawed, not only from execution but the amount of prisoners, the conditions and the so-called jury of peers. One flaw with the system is the severity of the punishment. If you burgularize, drive intoxicated, manslaughter someone, the punishment is the same: prison. Different punishments should be issued: caining or the removing of one's hand. I add the last with terepidation because it could begin a debate regarding what is cruel and unusual.
In spite of this latest setback, I think the country as a whole is moving away from the notion of the death penalty. No real, rational reason for it, just a feeling gleamed from bits and pieces of information.
And thank God for Spring.
I don't think execution is used to show people that killing is wrong. The purpose of the justice system is to protect individuals, not to teach. Good thing, too, since our justice system has done a piss poor job of teaching anything to anyone.
Maybe someone should kill Rod Stewart for murdering that song
Arnold's a piker...there was better poetry out at the time:
Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep-
He hath awakened from the dream of life-
'Tis we, who, lost in the stormy visions keep
With phantoms an unprofitable strife,
And in mad trance strike with our spirit's knife
Invulnerable nothings.-We decay
Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief
Convulse us and consume us day by day,
And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay.
The One remains, the many change and pass;
Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly;
Life, like a dome of many coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
Until Death tramples it to fragments.-Die,
If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek!
Follow where all is fled!-Rome's azure sky,
Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words are weak
The glory they transfuse with fitting words to speak
Excerpt from Shelly's Adonais
Just checking in...glad that you are okay. I guess that the difference is the 'old school -old testament' versus the 'new school - New Testament'.......And eye for and eye and a tooth for a tooth, just doesn't have the same ring as Jesus's message! Your facts are correct about Michigan! Take care. Peace and Love!
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