capital punishment Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

Sunday Stealing: Inspires

death penalty

Here’s another Sunday Stealing from SwapBot. Happy Pentecost for those who observe. I have my red shirt.

1. What inspires you the most?

People who can embrace selfless joy. There was a recent news story about a kid giving his dollar to a person he perceived was needy. And he gave it away because it made him feel good inside. One tries to do this, but I’m a flawed being.

2. How do you think the world will change in 20 years?

I’m trying to figure out whether global warming or the loss of democratic values will do us in first.

3. Cats or dogs and why?

I’ve had many cats but only one dog. Dogs are more loyal in general, though my dog bit me. Cats don’t require being walked when the weather is bad.

4. What is the funniest memory from your childhood?

When I was in third grade, kids played Keep Away with my hat during recess. I got so angry that I left. What’s funny is that all of my friends tell me I hopped a Crowley’s milk truck and went home. I believe the going home part but I have no independent recollection of the milk truck.

5. Where do you not mind waiting?

If I have a book or magazine, waiting is not onerous.

Ma Bell

6. What was the best thing before sliced bread?

The telephone. Imagine talking to people from far away. Only vaguely related, I still remember most of the old area codes in the United States that have 0 or 1 as the middle digit, such as 201 (NJ), 202 (DC), 203 (CT), 212 (NY), 213 (CA) 301 (MD), et al. The newer ones I don’t really know at all except 432, which is Cleveland, TN.

7. What product would you stockpile if you found out they weren’t going to sell it anymore?

Those picker-upper devices that I use to pick up small things from the floor without bending my terrible knees.

8. What do you get every time you go grocery shopping?

Bananas and blueberries.

9. What do people do too much of today?

Kvetch too much about what somebody who is not setting policy – a social media influencer or a football player (Aaron Rodgers, Harrison Butker) is saying about whatever. I disagree with many of their views but don’t feel compelled to discuss them ad nauseum. (Compare this with people like Brett Favre enriching himself at the government trough.

10. Are you a GoodWill, or any second-hand store customer?

I have been a Second Hand Rose – my current office chair falls in that category. I did purchase three compact discs recently for two bucks. I am more likely to offer items for free cycling than acquiring them

Capital punishment

11. How do you feel about the death penalty?

I’m against it for several reasons. “The death penalty in America is a flawed, expensive policy, defined by bias and error.” “A 2014 study estimated that at least 4% of those sentenced to death are innocent… Since 1973, at least 190 people have been exonerated from death row in the U.S.” Income and ethnicity play an outsized role in who are falsely convicted for these crimes.

Beyond that, I wish Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, was not executed in 2001. In part, it was because of the reasons noted.

12. Are there brands of certain items that you will ONLY buy that brand? Ie paper towels, ketchup, etc.

Cheerios. On two occasions, I bought the knockoffs, and they tasted like cardboard.

13. What are some things that you will buy the Store brand, and find the quality to be great?

Paper products: TP, paper towels, napkins

14. What is a Name-brand item that really disappointed you recently?

I purchased a BoiFun device to play compact discs and watch DVDs. But it then ceased to work. Moreover, I had bought one for my wife, which she didn’t use. When I tried, it didn’t work at all.

15. Do you wear glasses or contacts?

I’ve had glasses since I was five or six. But I’m not a contact lens kind of person.

K is for Kill

Surely, self-defense is often raised as a defense of war, just as it would be for an individual under attack.

I was attempting to have a theological conversation with my mother a few years back. She demurred, “I just follow the Ten Commandments.” Yeah, I said, but what do they mean? Take that one that says, “Thou shalt not kill?” How does one interpret that in today’s world?

For instance, according to some sources, “the Hebrew word that was used in this case for ‘kill’ (or murder) was the somewhat rare term rasah… Although its exact meaning has defied explanation, in other contexts it could refer to killing that was inherently evil… However, the same term could also have applied to unintentional manslaughter…, blood vengeance…, the legal execution of a criminal …”

Indeed, most iterations of Scripture now use the word “murder” rather than “kill” in Exodus 20:13, which I interpret as a more legalistic term.

This study suggests five topics for discussion, so I thought I’d touch on the same, though there are plenty more.

Suicide: if killing anyone is considered a sin against God, by its very nature, some consider suicide to be an irreparable sin. Yet in legal terms, one mitigates for “diminished capacity.” Would God do any less? The only suicide I can recall in the Bible was by Judas Iscariot, after turning Jesus over to the authorities.

Capital Punishment: “An eye for an eye,” the Old Testament says, but Jesus seems to modify that. Many, including me, feel quite uncomfortable with the state executing others in their name. Some even consider it murder by the state (rasah), and there are Biblical references to that being the case unless the guilt was absolutely certain.

Euthanasia: the miracle of medicine allow people to be kept alive much longer than we once thought possible. But what of the quality of that life? And certainly, one can distinguish between stopping doing everything possible to let go, and aiding the process, something most U.S. states would consider a form of murder.

War: certainly many wars were fought and recorded in Biblical times. How does that inform what WE should do? Some were expecting Jesus to be a great warrior in the military sense and were disappointed by this “Prince of Peace” fellow. And are there just wars and unjust wars? This has been argued for millennia. Surely, self-defense is often raised as a defense of war, just as it would be for an individual under attack.

Abortion: when does life begin? One would be hard-pressed to argue against the notion that at least the potential for life commences when a zygote is created. But these can be formed fairly frequently and don’t usually attach to the womb to grow. This discussion also is addressed in the stem cell debate and even some forms of birth control.

These are complicated issues. What do YOU think?

Unrighteous anger as murder?

ABC Wednesday – Round 7

May Ramblin’

People DO confess to crimes they did not commit

If I think about the BP debacle, my blood boils. So I try not to, generally unsuccessfully.

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DNA Clears NY Man Wrongly Convicted of 1988 Murder
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 28, 2010
Filed at 3:29 p.m. ET

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — A New York truck driver who spent nearly 19 years behind bars for a 1988 slaying he didn’t commit walked free Wednesday after DNA testing exonerated him and instead pointed to another prison inmate.
The exonerated inmate, Frank Sterling, 46, was convicted of murder in 1992 based on a confession that he later recanted.
State Judge Thomas Van Strydonck vacated the conviction after Monroe County prosecutors agreed with lawyers for the Innocence Project that DNA evidence obtained from the victim’s clothing excluded him as the killer and pointed instead to
Mark Christie, who was convicted of strangling a 4-year-old girl in 1994.

There’s a couple things about this story that jump out at me;
1) that people DO confess to crimes they did not commit; Sterling “claimed he had slipped into a hypnotic state and parroted details police gave him about the crime”
2) DNA testing can and should be used to solve more cases. Yet there as a disturbing report this month on ABC News about tens of thousands rape kits go unprocessed, some for a period beyond the statue of limitations
3) I continue to oppose the death penalty because sometimes the authorities just get it wrong
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Info sent me: Thirty years ago, Douglas Fraser, then president of what was still a million-member United Auto Workers union, presciently warned that the leaders of corporate America—in combination with the American Right—were waging a “one-sided class war.” He described it as “a war against working people, the unemployed, the poor, the minorities, the very young and the very old, and even many in the middle class of our society.”
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A nominee we can all support for the Supreme Court
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HP takes cue from Dick Tracy to develop a solar-powered wristwatch for the military that can display strategic information.
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There is a search engine called Clusty. The technology has been purchased by something called Yippy.

From the Yippy MISSION STATEMENT
Oh, we should say that we are a very far-out group of people. Everyone is a certified genius here and we work together for our goals for the love of it all. Good vs. Don’t be Evil … We are too smart to sell out to Porn, Gambling and other things that infect our society for profit. Good always wins, and conservative values will bring us our victory in the marketplace.
God controls all creative thought, it’s what you do with it that defines who you are.
Search Samples: Search of the word pornography
Sorry! Your choice of keywords indicates that you may be searching for a type of content which YIPPY does not allow. Please try another search term.

As someone sarcastically commented on the listserv where I found this: “How wonderful to see a search engine doing God’s will. It’s incredible!”
***
I get bulletins from Los Angeles Times. This past week I see: Big Bear teen becomes youngest to summit Everest, about 13-year-old Jordan Romero, who has been on a quest to climb the highest peaks on all seven continents. And what is my first thought? I didn’t know that “summit” was a verb.
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I get Google alerts for my name. Peculiar title: Indecent assault accused whacked with brolly. This is from Guyana. Then there’s the story about the German driver who narrowly escaped a fiery crash.
Finally, this obit for Roger Green of Nashville, TN. Only 58 – damn.
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Don’t use a public copy machine until you see this video from CBS News. If you’ve copied your birth certificate, passport, drivers license, social security card, or other extremely personal info on copy machines at places like Kwik Copy, Office Max, etc, you may never do so again.
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Google Pac Man is a permanent page. So if you missed it on the two days it was the main Google page logo, you’re in luck.
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This is the 40th anniversary of the Capital District Gay and Lesbian Community Council, which is sponsoring two full weeks of Pride events.
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Evanier had this: Jonathan Ortloff Plays Springtime for Hitler on the Wurlitzer organ.