Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Vote Against It, or Shut Yer Piehole
Doctors’ refusal to participate might eventually end the death penalty.
The death penalty in the United States might be hitting a roadblock: the Hippocratic Oath.
Condemned inmates in three states have successfully challenged lethal injection as cruel and unusual. For the first time, judges have sided with inmates in ruling that lethal injection has the potential to be unconstitutionally cruel – that without doctors present, the procedure could be inhumane.
The problem is that few doctors are willing to do it. Ultimately, this could put a halt to the use of lethal injections.
In an oft-cited article in March in the New England Journal of Medicine, physician Atul Gawande, who said he favors the death penalty, summed up the belief of many in his profession.
“Medicine is being made an instrument of punishment,” wrote Gawande, a general and endocrine surgeon at Brigham and Women�s Hospital in Boston. “We should seek a legal ban on the participation of physicians and nurses in executions.
“And if it turns out that executions cannot then be performed without, as the courts put it, ‘unconstitutional pain and cruelty,’ the death penalty should be abolished.”
You know what I haven’t seen in a very long time? A sincere, well-thought-out campaign to persuade people to actually vote against capital punishment. It’s always…physicians refuse to participate, Supreme Court justices rule it unconstitutional, the rest of the world doesn’t like it, blah blah blah.
The people who need to be executed, possibly living amongst us, makes this a great example for decision-making by the man-in-the-street…and, among those, the ones with the lowest stature. Around the civilized world, there’s a tendency for those most famous and wealthy, to live in the better neighborhoods. You live in a good neighborhood, there are certain disasters for you and your loved ones, that become a whole lot less likely. So this calls for a democratic-society vote, moreso even than most issues. Perhaps the anti-capital-punishment people can’t quite see that, because they only like to think about how they’d “feel” being strapped into the electric chair — not about the innocent people placed in danger when psychotics are allowed to keep on living.
Or, maybe they’re aware of the concept of federalism, and therefore, that if they want the death penalty abolished according to the democratic process in this country, they’d have to campaign on it 51 times. Maybe they just want more control than that, with a lot less work.
I’m sure there’s a good reason for the anti-democratic nature of the anti-death-penalty movement. Good…for them. I can’t think of a reason that’s good for the people who should be voting on it, or for our process of self-government. I don’t think they can, either.
I wonder what kind of neighborhood Atul Gawande lives in. Wondering if he’s got a wife or girlfriend who has to walk or ride a bus home from work by herself. It’s a fair question. This is an issue in which not all of us are exposed to the same threat.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.