In those halcyon days of capital punishment, we'd used to layout a picnic blanket in the town square and kindle someone alight. Roast some pork in the tangy smoke. Bring fire pokers so that the children might examine (mind your-selves!) what would happen to the worst of sinners. At the close of the day, we'd watch a convict make their last stride for heaven in the ascending ashes.
Or maybe it wasn't as romantic as a touchdown in the eleventh hour. The Apollo capsule rounding the moon, and mooning the forces of nature. As a hall of Republicans would have you think in the wild blaze they erupted, some time ago in the era of journalistic irrelevancy. It is unfortunate that 2011 will go down as a another year in a series of millenia where people still get hard and wet, contemplating execution on a herded, emotional basis, although it must be noted it was Allen in 1977 who first made the connection explicit when he suggested to Annie she should take sodium pentothal to slumber through relational duality.
A tad bit odd (just a tad bit) to bring up the death penalty in this joyous time of year for the West. There are no 'cause celebres' on the verge of the void to rally about, to print t-shirts and take action around. In fact, I can honestly say that the readership of this blog is unlikely to ever face the death penalty, we're all such nice people. (Isn't it disgusting the way I make blanket determinations about a class of people?) That doesn't make it any less of our concern, apparently. Being a public occasion is one aspect of execution that has yet to change in the continuum of Davis, Capet, and Christ but we no longer revel in gore but for the opportunity to write psuedophilosophical tracts on obscure blogs. Poor bastards, the bloggers, not those departed.
It is said by pithier people that societies are or should be measured by how well it treats those most worst off, like prisoners, but it is said by me that we only have regard for those people in the off-chance one finds oneself disgraced. I won't pass judgment on you that I might not be judged, the golden rule of justice and the vicious circle of life. Unfortunately for the condemned, even this does not apply here, when to see the end of days on death’s row you must have been accused and convicted of the worst and most unsavory of crimes (in all likelihood you're guilty as well): kindermurders, ultrarapes, trafficking and perhaps most importantly, homicides predicated on felonies and-or bad taste in music (forgive me, a flight of fantasy), although in lesser instances the state is hampered by that bothersome parchment the Constitution, and its draftees the Supreme Court. The mere name of 'punishment' betrays the abandonment of any noble rehabilitation, the so-called unringable bell, athough that phrase might have originated elsewhere, we must use only the finest words here, these are people's lives we're talking about.
Most alarming is the abandonment of parity in crime and consequence, whereas in 2009 fifty-two people were executed, 15,200 were murdered. Where are my 15,200 executions, and what is it with this half-asséd approach to capital punishment? There are 399 people on death row in Florida, the state blessed to have me. That is still a few hundred and one persons short of a humanitarian crisis, but at the lethargic rate of executions we'll be tugging at the heartstrings of their enlightened excellencies the Europeans in no time at all. (Most certainly distasteful it’d be to have them executed all one day.) I once swept dirt from my kitchen into a crevice because I didn't care to bend over but I feel the filth was fit to find its way back on the floor again in the annals of kitchen cleanliness. (It is certain.) So put many in peril but none in harm's way for the time being, speak the actions of governors like Oregon’s, who so far has pursued the most passively aggressive resistance to the death penalty in recent memory, ceasing during his term which has stayed only temporarily the execution of this year’s lucky man. The same wishiwashiness and delay that that has pervaded American executions, except Texas, seemingly able to survive any infection of liberalism or humanity. Why, it takes almost thirteen years for someone to be executed in la Floride!
On one hand, the intense scrutiny, and time, and money, because time is money and money can buy time on death row, all those things that they'd forget and repurpose if we were to merely imprison offenders and dispose of the key. Even the Supreme Court could agree that it's not that big of a deal to imprison an innocent person for the rest of their natural life in the name of justice. Then politicians and judges and juries could reuse the newfound hours of the day to the noble task of playing chicken with the deb ceiling or some shit like that.
Then again, how can we really assess the effectiveness of execution if we allow the process to proceed in slow motion (and keep the sample size insufficiently stacked)? The good people of this nation would be thoroughly outraged if we waited thirteen years for someone to begin a prison sentence on the off-chance of a judicial miscarriage. Get the president on the line, there really is only one solution to this dilemna: we need to execute more people, starting with those 15,148 miscarriages of justice I mentioned earlier. (This will also serve the second purpose of puffing chests with our stone-happy neighbors the Iranians and the Chinese, We're just like you!)
Or maybe it wasn't as romantic as a touchdown in the eleventh hour. The Apollo capsule rounding the moon, and mooning the forces of nature. As a hall of Republicans would have you think in the wild blaze they erupted, some time ago in the era of journalistic irrelevancy. It is unfortunate that 2011 will go down as a another year in a series of millenia where people still get hard and wet, contemplating execution on a herded, emotional basis, although it must be noted it was Allen in 1977 who first made the connection explicit when he suggested to Annie she should take sodium pentothal to slumber through relational duality.
A tad bit odd (just a tad bit) to bring up the death penalty in this joyous time of year for the West. There are no 'cause celebres' on the verge of the void to rally about, to print t-shirts and take action around. In fact, I can honestly say that the readership of this blog is unlikely to ever face the death penalty, we're all such nice people. (Isn't it disgusting the way I make blanket determinations about a class of people?) That doesn't make it any less of our concern, apparently. Being a public occasion is one aspect of execution that has yet to change in the continuum of Davis, Capet, and Christ but we no longer revel in gore but for the opportunity to write psuedophilosophical tracts on obscure blogs. Poor bastards, the bloggers, not those departed.
It is said by pithier people that societies are or should be measured by how well it treats those most worst off, like prisoners, but it is said by me that we only have regard for those people in the off-chance one finds oneself disgraced. I won't pass judgment on you that I might not be judged, the golden rule of justice and the vicious circle of life. Unfortunately for the condemned, even this does not apply here, when to see the end of days on death’s row you must have been accused and convicted of the worst and most unsavory of crimes (in all likelihood you're guilty as well): kindermurders, ultrarapes, trafficking and perhaps most importantly, homicides predicated on felonies and-or bad taste in music (forgive me, a flight of fantasy), although in lesser instances the state is hampered by that bothersome parchment the Constitution, and its draftees the Supreme Court. The mere name of 'punishment' betrays the abandonment of any noble rehabilitation, the so-called unringable bell, athough that phrase might have originated elsewhere, we must use only the finest words here, these are people's lives we're talking about.
Most alarming is the abandonment of parity in crime and consequence, whereas in 2009 fifty-two people were executed, 15,200 were murdered. Where are my 15,200 executions, and what is it with this half-asséd approach to capital punishment? There are 399 people on death row in Florida, the state blessed to have me. That is still a few hundred and one persons short of a humanitarian crisis, but at the lethargic rate of executions we'll be tugging at the heartstrings of their enlightened excellencies the Europeans in no time at all. (Most certainly distasteful it’d be to have them executed all one day.) I once swept dirt from my kitchen into a crevice because I didn't care to bend over but I feel the filth was fit to find its way back on the floor again in the annals of kitchen cleanliness. (It is certain.) So put many in peril but none in harm's way for the time being, speak the actions of governors like Oregon’s, who so far has pursued the most passively aggressive resistance to the death penalty in recent memory, ceasing during his term which has stayed only temporarily the execution of this year’s lucky man. The same wishiwashiness and delay that that has pervaded American executions, except Texas, seemingly able to survive any infection of liberalism or humanity. Why, it takes almost thirteen years for someone to be executed in la Floride!On one hand, the intense scrutiny, and time, and money, because time is money and money can buy time on death row, all those things that they'd forget and repurpose if we were to merely imprison offenders and dispose of the key. Even the Supreme Court could agree that it's not that big of a deal to imprison an innocent person for the rest of their natural life in the name of justice. Then politicians and judges and juries could reuse the newfound hours of the day to the noble task of playing chicken with the deb ceiling or some shit like that.
Then again, how can we really assess the effectiveness of execution if we allow the process to proceed in slow motion (and keep the sample size insufficiently stacked)? The good people of this nation would be thoroughly outraged if we waited thirteen years for someone to begin a prison sentence on the off-chance of a judicial miscarriage. Get the president on the line, there really is only one solution to this dilemna: we need to execute more people, starting with those 15,148 miscarriages of justice I mentioned earlier. (This will also serve the second purpose of puffing chests with our stone-happy neighbors the Iranians and the Chinese, We're just like you!)
P.S. Someone wants to take me up on my offer already.
