Capital Punishment

We're on an episode by episode diet of a couple of Netflix's British TV offerings at present.
They are set in different time periods, and in Britain: The Grand set in or around 1920, in Manchester, north of England; and Inspector George Gently set in the mid 1960s in the north-eastern counties of Durham and Northumberland. In episodes of both series, instances of capital punishment have been portrayed, in quick but detailed scenes. Hanging. No gaggle of observers present, as often seen in American movies when the electric chair or gas chamber scenes are part of plots. Basic, fast : hangman, witness and priest. Bag over convict's head, noose round neck - lever pulled down - done and dusted! In a relevant scene from The Grand it was a teenaged female hanged, in the Gently series several murderers convicted before 1965 were hanged in various 90 minute episodes.

The sight of those fictional hangings came as a surprise - gave my sensibilities quite a jolt! For most of my life, in the UK, the death penalty had become a thing of the past. The last hanging in Britain happened in 1965, so since capital punishment was no more an option, I had given little time to considering the pros and cons. Arriving in Oklahoma, though, I was shocked to discover that, here, the death penalty is still "a thing" - in the 21st century! Not only that, but the fact that, in the course of administering said penalty via lethal injection, more than once things have gone wrong due to incompetence, or other excuse.

There are plans for the death penalty to be abolished in the USA, in states still allowing it.
With reference to the Democratic Platform 2016:

In 2012, Democrats wrote that "the death penalty must not be arbitrary." The 2016 platform goes further. We will abolish the death penalty, which has proven to be a cruel and unusual form of punishment. It has no place in the United States of America.
That's not Hillary Clinton's position.

Another empty promise? We shall see.

An interesting piece on the history of the death penalty is at the PBS website HERE. Goodness me! Some of those ancient methods of carrying out the ultimate punishment are worse than anything seen in the most horrific of horror movies: burning, boiling, drawing and quartering, drowning, crucifixion, burial alive, beating to death, and impalement. "The Romans had a curious punishment for parricides (murder of a parent): the condemned was submersed in water in a sack, which also contained a dog, a rooster, a viper and an ape. The most notorious death execution in BC was about 399 BC when the Greek philosopher Socrates was required to drink poison for heresy and corruption of youth."

William the Conqueror seems to have been the only historical "good cop" in a universe of "very bad cops". He opposed taking life except in war, and ordered no person to be hanged or executed for any offense. However, he allowed criminals to be mutilated for their crimes. (I thought there'd have to have been a snag!)

My own feelings on the death penalty: a lifetime's hard labour (and I do mean hard) would be a more appropriate punishment for horrendous crimes. These days death offers (mostly) a quick and easy way out. In cases where further evidence surfaces, proving the convicted person to have been innocent, though unfairly punished for a time, he or she would still be alive, and perhaps eligible for compensation.

“You look at the crime and you look at the criminal. If it's a dope dealer who guns down an undercover narcotics officer, then he gets the gas. If it's a drifter who rapes a three-year-old girl, drowns her by holding her little head in a mudhole, then throws her body off a bridge, then you take his life and thank god he's gone. If it's an escaped convict who breaks into a farmhouse late at night and beats and tortures an elderly couple before burning them with their house, then you strap him in a chair, hook up a few wires, pray for his soul, and pull the switch. And if it's two dopeheads who gang-rape a ten-year-old girl and kick her with pointed-toe cowboy boots until her jaws break, then you happily, merrily, thankfully, gleefully lock them in a gas chamber and listen to them squeal. It's very simple. Their crimes were barbaric. Death is too good for them, much too good.”
― John Grisham, in A Time to Kill.

Death Penalty

In following online writings and comments this week touching on the investigation of the Boston Marathon bombings and charges against the younger Tsarnaev brother, it bothered me - a lot - to read so many demands for Dzhohkar Tsarnaev to receive the death penalty. Having spent most of my life in Britain, actually in England, where capital punishment was abolished for murder in 1965, it feels, for me, like a step back into the dark ages. Last time the subject came up here, in 2011, regarding a GOP primary debate when the audience gave a rousing ovation to Texas governor Rick Perry's stance on the death penalty, his record number of 234 executions, and his response that he "does not struggle" with the possibility of executing an innocent person, I wrote: "Ye gods!!!! Blood pressure rising......What is this, the New Old West or what? Don't these people evolve at all? They don't believe in evolution do they? That answers a lot."

What shocks me, too, is that politicians I'd looked on as more evolved, such as Al Gore and Chuck Schumer, have voiced open support for retaining capital punishment in the USA. What is wrong with these people? It seems like some disease of which a symptom is chronic blood-lust.

There is no doubt at all that Dzhohkar Tsarnaev should be imprisoned for life. There would be some hope that during his imprisonment he could realise how evil his actions had been, and over the years he might possibly be in a position to, say, write a book or in other ways convince other young would-be terrorists against supporting further atrocities.

Grab Bag ~ " Madly off in all directions"...Astro and Other.

Madly off in all directions is from a line by famous Canadian writer and humourist Stephen Leacock in his story Gertrude the Governess. ("Lord Ronald said nothing; he flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.")

Giddy-up then!

A friend and relative kindly passed on to me a link to a Mental Floss piece about Freddie Mercury, published on what would have been his 65th birthday - 5 September. The writer, Stacy Conradt lists 10 things we might not know about the iconic vocalist of the band Queen. This is #1:

He designed the Queen emblem (AKA the Queen Crest) himself, thanks to a degree in art and graphic design from Ealing Art College. The crest is made of the zodiac signs of the whole band – two Leo lions for John Deacon and Roger Taylor, a Cancer crab for Brian May and two fairies to represent Freddie’s Virgo sign. The “Q” and the crown represent the band name, of course, and a phoenix protects the whole thing.

Dharmaruci's 1st September post at Astrotabletalk titled Pluto in Capricorn and Neptune in Pisces: the New Reformation? Is well worth a good long read, with plenty of food for thought.




From Thomas Paine's essay on The Origins of Free-Masonry published in New York, 1818:

Masonry (as I shall show from the customs, ceremonies, hieroglyphics, and chronology of Masonry) is derived and is the remains of the religion of the ancient Druids; who, like the Magi of Persia and the Priests of Heliopolis in Egypt, were Priests of the Sun. They paid worship to this great luminary, as the great visible agent of a great invisible first cause whom they styled " Time without limits."
.........In Masonry many of the ceremonies of the Druids are preserved in their original state, at least without any parody. With them the Sun is still the Sun; and his image, in the form of the sun is the great emblematical ornament of Masonic Lodges and Masonic dresses..............Free Masons Hall, in Great Queen-street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London, is a magnificent building, and cost upwards of 12,000 pounds sterling. Smith, in speaking of this building, says (page 152,) "The roof of this magnificent Hall is in all probability the highest piece of finished architecture in Europe. In the center of this roof, a most resplendent Sun is represented in burnished gold, surrounded with the twelve signs of the Zodiac, with their respective characters........................ The Masons, in order to protect themselves from the persecution of the Christian church, have always spoken in a mystical manner of the figure of the Sun in their Lodges, or, like the astronomer Lalande, who is a Mason, been silent upon the subject.

A fascinating piece and super photographs by Michael Simpson, describes how Freemasonry and astrology were involved in the building of Washington DC. Their input can be traced, easily. : Esoteric & Masonic Symbolism In Washington D.C.




Landau Eugene Murphy Jr. is through to the Finale of America's Got Talent, to be held next Tuesday. See also my previous post about him.


He was one of the four finalists chosen by audience votes from this week's 8 semi-finalists. His version of the Rat-Pack favourite "Ain't that a Kick In the Head" was very well received by audience, judges, and us, parked on the sofa. We even agreed (for once) with Piers Morgan's comment - Landau is the only act, from the show, that we'd pay to watch for an hour and a half. He seems like such a lovely guy too. Still can't find his birth date. Anybody?








We watched a DVD of the movie Off the Map recently. Nice story, with the gorgeous Sam Elliot in a starring part.
The storyline features a family living off the grid - attempting to remain self-sufficient, as many people think we should all be aiming to do in coming years, if we and the planet are to survive. How and why this family decided to live as they do isn't touched on in the movie, which is adapted from a play by Joan Ackermann. Keys to the storyline are Sam Elliott's character's deep chronic depression and the arrival of an IRS (tax) auditor.

A storyline relating to a rural family and the arrival of a taxman reminded me, initially, of a beloved British TV series from the early 1990s,
The Darling Buds of May, with David Jason as Pop Larkin - but any similarity ended there. Pop Larkin was definitely not depressed!







Always on my own "learning curve", I try never to miss a chance to investigate stuff I'm hazy about. Like this: a reference to "sui generis" in a piece of writing relating to, would you believe, Sarah Palin?

From rusty memories of grammar school Latin I kind of got the writer's meaning, but to check myself consulted Merriam Webster

Definition of SUI GENERIS: constituting a class alone : unique, peculiar .
Example:
"Among history's greats Leonardo da Vinci is often considered sui generis—a man of such stupendous genius that the world may never see his like again."
Origin: Latin translated: of its own kind
First Known Use: 1754
Synonyms: alone, lone, one, one-off, singular, sole, solitary, special, only, unique

Sarah Palin, sui generis? I guess that works, but not in the way it works for Leonardo! She does have several planets in Aquarius, after all, Aquarius is, I'd propose, the "sui generis" sign.



(Rant warning)Rick Perry, Texas Governor, has been in the GOP nomination race for much shorter time than any of the other candidates, yet he gets publicity and poll numbers way out of proportion to his standing. My gut feeling: he has excessive support from behind-the-scenes people with purse strings and power strings. I understand that Perry is backed by the money men of the energy industry, while Mitt Romney who appears to be his nearest rival at present, is backed by the deep pockets of Wall Street. More reasonable candidates such as Jon Huntsman, though personally wealthy, don't have the necessary outside backing it takes to be properly noticed. It's becoming easier to see the game plan of The Powers That Be as the weeks pass.

Yuk-est moment of the week ocurred in the GOP debate on Wednesday evening when the audience gave a rousing ovation to Perry's stance on the death penalty, his record number of 234 executions, and his response that he "does not struggle" with the possibility of executing an innocent person. Ye gods!!!! Blood pressure rising......What is this, the New Old West or what? Don't these people evolve at all? They don't believe in evolution do they? That answers a lot.