House of Eratosthenes

I remember from my school assignments, or those intelligence tests, somewhere in those years there were sections of “Too much information.” This wasn’t a reference to things like “We were so happy my husband and I had sex for the first time in months.” Or, “I have trouble buying pants because my left nut hangs lower than my right one.” Not like that at all. They’d ask questions like: Roberto has twelve marbles. He lost five. The marbles are blue. How many marbles does he have left? You’d have to pick out which bit of information was irrelevant to answering the question.

I thought at the time the point was to assess reading comprehension. But in more recent years I realize there are people who can keep drama separated from their logical thinking, and then there are people who can’t. “Too much information” is a situation that doesn’t exist, for the latter, because everything has to have an effect on the outcome.

You don’t see it with marbles and math.

But you do see it with…”Lindsay Clancy was framed. Her husband Patrick is actually the one who murdered the children. His timeline doesn’t add up. And Lindsay didn’t get the help she needed because the system failed her.”

And…”Christa Pike has been convicted of murder and sentenced to death. The execution failed tonight. She is in agony.”

Twelve minus five is seven. It doesn’t matter what color the marbles are.

Granting the supposition that Patrick Clancy murdered his own children and then successfully framed his wife Lindsay…it doesn’t matter if the system failed her or she didn’t get the help she needed. If we’re accepting that her husband did it, that would mean she’s innocent. Innocent and cuckoo, innocent and sane, innocent and not getting the help she needs…it doesn’t matter. And it also doesn’t matter if she’s guilty, because getting the help she needs, or not, she’s still dangerous. But let’s not go down that rabbit hole which has been explored plenty enough already.

Christa Pike committed murder and was sentenced to death for it. The sentence will be carried out…hopefully. One less murderer on the planet. She’s in agony? So what?

We’ve gone down the road a ways, of normalizing this flailing about looking for any little piece of gravel that can be thrown in the cogs. Any wrench to throw in the gears, anything to derail rational thinking, anything to nudge people into emotional reasoning. The marbles are blue — that changes the answer. Eh, no it doesn’t. It really doesn’t. Lindsay Clancy, railroaded by her husband, can’t get the help she needs. What’s it matter? And we’re going to remove Christa Pike from existence because she’s a murderer.

We don’t care what she learns from her punishment. Or whether she’s in pain. She’s not supposed to be alive anyway.

For the past several decades, there are more murders. That’s because we treat murderers with compassion, empathy, forgiveness…which the families of their victims never consented to giving. And we look for excuses to unlink their crimes from any deliberations about their moral compasses.

Meanwhile, people guilty of lesser crimes, like littering or jaywalking, must have meant to do it. No “not guilty by reason of insanity” for them. We don’t accept the excuse that they weren’t thinking it through all the way, they’re just guilty. And we don’t care about whether they’re in pain or having a bad day. They just owe the fine, period. Or the jail term. Maybe if they show up to fight it the judge will cut it in half, but apart from that, if they’re guilty they’re guilty and they have to pay their debt to society.

It should be the other way around.

It should work like…I saw the wrapper hit the ground, and darn it, the wind was blowing it around, I’m not as young as I used to be, and I was in a hurry…I got ahead of myself. Okay. Fine suspended, case dismissed. Like that. And then as we work our way through these infractions, up to and including manslaughter, we respond to this increasing severity with — apathy. Okay, so you had a rough childhood. So? You killed someone. Your childhood is like the color of Roberto’s marbles. Doesn’t affect the ultimate outcome. Not even a little bit.

In fact, if you’re hooked on drugs or had a bad childhood and you haven’t got what it takes to get that under control, that’s all the more reason why you should be removed.

I don’t know why we have this backwards. I really don’t.

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Tee Em EyeWednesday, September 30th, 2026

Tee Em Eye
Wednesday, September 30th, 2026