Death, Hurricane and Poetry on Demand
Plantgirl blogs :Does this seem bizarre to anyone else?": Judge orders force-feeding for convicted sniper
Not to me. Of course it's cheaper to put someone in prison for life than to pay all the court costs of putting them to death. But the death penalty isn't about cost. It's about revenge. And if the sniper starves himself to death, then no-one gets revenge.
I'm a bad blogger I suppose in that I haven't been following Hurricane Katrina until I read this breath of fresh air with all the wailing in the media I've been reading about the hurricane. (pardon the pun) I don't actually know anyone in New Orleans, so that's definitely part of it. If anyone reading this has been affected by Hurricane Katrina, my heart goes out to you and your family.
But I also thought those folks would all be okay and they were. Don't get me wrong. I really wouldn't want to be one of the thousands in the SuperDome waiting and wondering if my house was going to be okay. But I'd rather be one of them than one of the tsunami victims who had no warning and suffered terribly. Of course I'd rather be me. But my point isn't really about pain and suffering. It's more about how terribly self-absorbed most Americans are. Do you know there are people in Niger are starving? Okay it's a cliche to write about starving people. Still, people don't blog about that as often as it deserves. Neither did I until now. I'll try to provide more balanced coverage when I do blog about world events.
I thought this was an interesting idea: Poetry on Demand
4 comments:
If you want global, try the attempted genocide that's happening in Darfur. It's not being called genocide, because the government is denying it's happening, and because it's not happening with knives, machetes, or guns, but by burning people's homes and fields and driving them out into the desert so they die from dehydration and starvation, but I think it qualifies.
FWIW, I blogged about Katrina because I'm fascinated by storms and by watershed management and human stupidity. This potential problems from Katrina hitting New Orleans combined neatly into that package. Because it was in the US it was possible for me to track it as it happened. I would track any large storm that gave me similar access and had the same risk of flooding through human stupidity. I don't tend to blog about political stuff, but occasionally something catches my interest enough that I break that (personally imposed) protocol.
I understand the aspect of revenge involved in keeping someone alive until you can kill them yourself. I object to the waste of money involved in the process, to the emotional attachment to *how* this guy dies. Virginia wants him dead, fine, he's starving to death. I think that should be good enough.
Jenny, you're right about the starving people right here.
And the genocide in Darfur fills me with horror, and I don't really know what to do. So therefore I'm afraid I try not to think about it.
And plantgirl, I hope I didn't offend you or anyone else. I wasn't directing anything at you. Obviously people have direct interest in various things and therefore blog about them. Most of the wailing is in the media. I'll make that part more clear.
The thing that bothered me most about media coverage of Katrina was that they seemed to want a disaster to happen. I had that feeling from a lot of people.
Me too, Frumiousb and welcome! Glad you're here!
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