The execution of Stanley Tookie Williams

This isn't the way a civilized society should behave. But civilized or not, it doesn't make any sense. I don't have to recount the arguments. The death penalty just doesn't do what it's supposed to do.
Worse yet, from the little bit I know about the Stanley Williams case, including hearing the Amy Goodman interview, I think he's probably innocent. And on top of that, he's completely turned his life around (how many of us could do that starting from where he started? and on death row?) and was doing something good for society. What kind of a people are we? I mourn for us.

An Oversupply of Bad News

I know what's printed as news can be expected to be bad because the world is supposed to be going on more or less okay and that kind of stuff doesn't need to be reported. But reading the paper tonight it hit me that really things are just AWFUL. Deaths from Katrina (which occurred 3 1/2 months ago) are at 1,323 and bodies are still being found and nothing is being done about rebuilding or anything, even though Bush promised to restore New Orleans to its former grandeur, with the result that nobody can take a chance on restoring a business or a home because nobody has any assurances that anyone else will.... It's the same story in Iraq: a promise to rebuild and then - - - nothing.... Forty-three percent of the homeless in the Denver area are women and children. Nobody notices.... The Chinese government opened fire on villagers protesting land seizures, the biggest killing since Tiananmen....Senate Majority Leader Frist says he is prepared to strip Democrats of their ability to filibuster if they try to stall Judge Alito's Supreme Court nomination.... Pilots are accepting wage cuts to try to keep Delta Airlines from bankruptcy. ... Female inmates are soaring in Colorado; a third of them are in prison for drugs.... There are limited supplies of antitoxin for bird flu.
I guess that's enough.

Common Sense

When I was a kid I thought the world was basically a fairly decent, civilized, orderly place. My parents were outstanding, and actually I think my neighborhood was pretty good too. And my school too--of usually about 13 kids in as many of the eight grades they comprised, and, yes, we walked 1 1/2 miles in the snow.
And what do I think now? I don't have the words to describe my feelings. Yeah, I'm okay, more than okay personally, but the country isn't. I can scarcely believe what we're going through; I must be making it up. But our president says he will veto a bill if an anit-torture amendment is attached to it, while at the same time he is saying America does not torture people, and he appointed an Attorney General who found it okay for America to torture prisoners, and he is sending Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Europe to tell people that we don't torture or do rendition, even though it was all over the news a while back that we took a Canadian citizen off a plane in NY and sent him to--was it Syria?--where he says he was tortured. And there are camps all over the world where we send people to be tortured.
Just one more thing: what I was initially going to write about. People are mad if we wish anyone a Merry Christmas and other people are mad if we wish anyone Happy Holidays. But for a change I haven't heard an argument about a manger scene in front of the City and County Building, which is beautifully decorated for Christmas. Yeah, they say it's corny, and others say it's too Christian, but I like it. There's lots more, but I'll just say, get a life. And some common sense.