Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Bryan Stevenson on Empathy
Updates on Meds Used in Executions
Execution Halted in Georgia due to Change of Meds
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/23/us-usa-execution-georgia-idUSBRE86M1F720120723
British Docs Vote to end Use of Meds in Executions
http://www.reprieve.org.uk/press/2012_06_27_bma_votes_end_use_of_meds_executions/
UK Bans Export of Drugs to US for use in Executions
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/10/uk-ban-export-drug-us-executions
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/23/us-usa-execution-georgia-idUSBRE86M1F720120723
British Docs Vote to end Use of Meds in Executions
http://www.reprieve.org.uk/press/2012_06_27_bma_votes_end_use_of_meds_executions/
UK Bans Export of Drugs to US for use in Executions
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/10/uk-ban-export-drug-us-executions
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Reuters Report: Murders & Firearms in Britain and the US
from Juan Cole: Informed Comment posted on Reader Supported News on 22 July 12
http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/335-156/12554-58-murders-a-year-by-firearms-in-britain-8775-in-us
umber of Murders, United States, 2010: 12,996Number of Murders by Firearms, US, 2010: 8,775
Number of Murders, Britain, 2011*: 638
(Since Britain's population is 1/5 that of US, this is equivalent to 3,095 US murders)
Number of Murders by firearms, Britain, 2011*: 58
(equivalent to 290 US murders)
Number of Murders by crossbow in Britain, 2011*: 2
(equivalent to 10 US murders).
For more on murder by firearms in Britain, see the BBC.
The international comparisons show conclusively that fewer gun owners per capita produce not only fewer murders by firearm, but fewer murders per capita overall. In the case of Britain, firearms murders are 30 times fewer than in the US per capita.
Do hunters really need semi-automatic AR-15 assault weapons? Is that how they roll in deer season? The US public doesn’t think so.
* British crime statistics are September to September, so 2011 is actually 2010-2011.
http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_21129630/after-dark-knight-tragedy-keep-going-movies
Denver Tragedy URL to videos
http://www.facebook.com/48hours I am not a FB user but here are some leads for more discussion
on this horrific event -- including a reference to forgiveness from one of the surviving victims...comments are also interesting and diverse.
on this horrific event -- including a reference to forgiveness from one of the surviving victims...comments are also interesting and diverse.
The Denver Shooting: The More Op Ed
Did You Hear About the Shooting?
This article cross-posted from WhoWhatWhy
One of the most striking things about shooting incidents in America...is how common they are. Another striking thing is how often the media fails to note the previous point, or to explore what that means -- or what might be done about it.
Late last night, a gunman walked into a movie theater in a Denver suburb, killed 12 and injured 50. Two days earlier a gunman opened fire outside a bar in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in an incident in which at least 17 were hurt. These were not really so exceptional. Every year, about 100,000 Americans are victims of gun violence, and every week, people calmly enter our schools, our workplaces, our leisure gathering spots and open fire on innocent bystanders.
Whenever we tweet or post about these, often the only people we hear from are those who say we need more guns not less. "If I had been there with my gun..." The problem, of course, is the public at large is being asked to arm everyone and trust that, while the rest of us cower, "the right people" will quickly dispatch "the wrong people" in the modern equivalent of the Shootout at the OK Corral. No mention of whether the teacher is supposed to be armed...when a nut walks into a preschool and starts firing away.
Meanwhile, the media doesn't have any answers at all. Each time such an incident occurs, they primarily evince a morbid interest in the grotesque details of the incident and the psycho of the day. In this case, early indications were that the suspect in custody, James Holmes, said to be a dropout from a medical school, had some kind of imagined association with the film being shown, the Batman movie "The Dark Knight Rises."
And what is our response to all this? We were told that the president was awakened at 5:25am by his counter-terrorism adviser. He then issued the following statement:
"As we do when confronted by moments of darkness and challenge, we must now come together as one American family. All of us must have the people of Aurora in our thoughts and prayers as they confront the loss of family, friends and neighbors, and we must stand together with them in the challenging hours and days to come."Later, in a press conference, he said: "Such violence, such evil is senseless."
Romney, in a statement, said:
"Ann and I are deeply saddened by the news of the senseless violence that took the lives of 15 people in Colorado and injured dozens more. We are praying for the families and loved ones of the victims during this time of deep shock and immense grief. We expect that the person responsible for this terrible crime will be quickly brought to justice."That's about the sum total of leadership these days. Avoid the core issue, pray, and extend sympathies to the families of the victims. No mention of systemic and endemic factors, or of taking action to prevent this kind of tragedy in the future.
A Brutal Culture Begets Violence
In the case of the Tuscaloosa shooter, we had some useful particulars. But sadly, this kind of actionable information is just too "big picture" for us to contemplate:
"There were signs Wilkins' life was unraveling.
"He divorced from his wife of 16 years around 2005 and a credit union last year tried to garnish wages at his then-employer, Capstone Oilfield Services, to collect a more than $15,000 debt but couldn't because he had declared bankruptcy. And the co-owner of the FedEx store where Wilkins turned himself in said Wilkins talked about being high on drugs during the shootings."From that, we can see that Wilkins was experiencing stresses and crises. And at least some of them are related to the economic difficulties most of us are facing. And those are caused, at least in some cases, by greed and relentless pressure for profits, irrespective of the harm to others. That is, stresses are not all our fault. The ruthless bottom-line priorities of our society and the lack of protections for consumers and workers are factors in people becoming alienated and enraged. (We wrote a bit about regulating financial excesses the other day -- you can read that here.)
Gun violence is also due, in part, to the power of gun manufacturers -- which constitute way too big an industry altogether. While it's surprisingly hard to find accurate totals on firearms production, which in itself is troubling, according to a gun manufacturers' association, even a decade ago American firms were pumping out more than 3 million combined rifles, shotguns, revolvers and pistols in a single year. And those numbers have been climbing.
That's a mind-boggling figure. Indeed, we live in a country where firepower, both that held by individuals and by the state, is, frankly, pretty deranged. No other country on earth so bristles with means of killing -- and no other country thinks it is quite so healthy an entertainment for us and our children to sit at a console for hours and try to "kill" other people--including civilians.No other country thinks it is moral behavior to use pilotless drones to kill -- in large part -- people whose only crime is that they're young men of military age.
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Author, investigative journalist, editor-in-chief at WhoWhatWhy.com
Saturday, July 21, 2012
BILL MOYERS on the National Rifle Association (NRA)
"the NRA is the enabler of death -
paranoid, delusional, and as venomous as a scorpion. With the weak-kneed
acquiescence of our politicians, the National Rifle Association has
turned the Second Amendment of the Constitution into a cruel hoax, a
cruel and deadly hoax."
ou
might think Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President of and spokesman
for the mighty American gun lobby, The National Rifle Association, has
an almost cosmic sense of timing. In 2007, at the NRA’s annual
convention in St. Louis, he warned the crowd that, "Today, there is not
one firearm owner whose freedom is secure."
The NRA's Dark Gun Culture
Reader Supported News
21 July 12
ou
might think Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President of and spokesman
for the mighty American gun lobby, The National Rifle Association, has
an almost cosmic sense of timing. In 2007, at the NRA’s annual
convention in St. Louis, he warned the crowd that, "Today, there is not
one firearm owner whose freedom is secure."
Two days later, a young man opened fire on the campus
of Virginia Tech, killing 32 students, staff and teachers. Just last
week LaPierre showed up at the United Nations Conference on the Arms
Trade Treaty here in New York and spoke out against what he called
"Anti-freedom policies that disregard American citizens' right to
self-defense."
Now at least 12 are dead in Aurora, Colorado, gunned
down by a mad man at a showing of the new Batman movie filled with
make-believe violence. One of the guns the shooter used was an
AK-47-type assault weapon that was banned in 1994. The National Rifle
Association saw to it that the ban expired in 2004. The NRA is the best
friend a killer's instinct ever had.
Obviously, LaPierre's timing isn’t cosmic, just
coincidental; as Shakespeare famously wrote, "The fault is not in our
stars, but in ourselves." In other words, people. People with guns.
There are an estimated 300 million guns in the United States, one in
four adult Americans owns at least one and most of them are men. The
British newspaper The Guardian, reminds us that over the last
30 years, "The number of states with a law that automatically approves
licenses to carry concealed weapons provided an applicant clears a
criminal background check has risen from eight to 38."
Every year there are 30,000 gun deaths and 300,000
gun-related assaults in the U.S. Firearm violence may cost our country
as much as $100 billion a year. Toys are regulated with greater care and
safety concerns.
So why do we always act so surprised? Violence is
alter ego, wired into our Stone Age brains, so intrinsic its toxic
eruptions no longer shock, except momentarily when we hear of a mass
shooting like this latest in Colorado. But this, too, will pass and the
nation of the short attention span quickly finds the next thing to
divert us from the hard realities of America in 2012.
We are after all a country which began with the forced
subjugation into slavery of millions of Africans and the reliance on
arms against Native Americans for its Westward expansion. In truth, more
settlers traveling the Oregon Trail died from accidental,
self-inflicted gunshots wounds than Indian attacks - we were not only
bloodthirsty but also inept.
Nonetheless, we have become so gun loving, so blasé
about home-grown violence that in my lifetime alone, far more Americans
have been casualties of domestic gunfire than have died in all our wars
combined. In Arizona last year, just days after the Gabby Giffords
shooting, sales of the weapon used in the slaughter - a 9 millimeter
Glock semi-automatic pistol - doubled.
We are fooling ourselves. That the law could allow
even an inflamed lunatic to easily acquire murderous weapons and not
expect murderous consequences. Fooling ourselves that the second
amendment’s guarantee of a "well-regulated militia" be construed as a
God-given right to purchase and own just about any weapon of destruction
you like. That's a license for murder and mayhem and it's a great fraud
that has entered our history.
There's a video of which I'd like to remind you. You
can see it on YouTube. In it, Adam Gadahn, an American born member of al
Qaeda, the first U.S. citizen charged with treason since 1952, urges
terrorists to carry out attacks on the United States. Right before your
eyes he says: "America is absolutely awash with easily obtainable
firearms. You can go down to a gun show at the local convention center
and come away with a fully automatic assault rifle, without a background
check, and most likely, without having to show an identification card.
So what are you waiting for?"
The killer in Colorado waited only for an opportunity,
and there you have it - the arsenal of democracy transformed into the
arsenal of death and the NRA - the NRA is the enabler of death -
paranoid, delusional, and as venomous as a scorpion. With the weak-kneed
acquiescence of our politicians, the National Rifle Association has
turned the Second Amendment of the Constitution into a cruel hoax, a
cruel and deadly hoax.
Find VIDEO and more on Reader Supported News here
Find VIDEO and more on Reader Supported News here
(Blogger's note from Journey Blog: I'm leaving some select comments from Readers Supported Media (RSN)
Friday, July 20, 2012
DENVER COVERAGE (Democracy Now!)
Denver in Middle of the Night
Denver Shooting Rampage Leaves 12 Dead, 50 Wounded in Latest of Unparalleled U.S. Gun Attacks
At least 12 people have been killed and more than 50 wounded in a mass shooting at a movie theater outside of Denver. A number of the wounded are in critical condition. It was one of the worst mass shootings in the United States since the killings of 32 people at Virginia Tech five years ago. The shootings have called to mind the killings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, only 25 miles away from the theater, where 12 students and a teacher were killed in a mass shooting spree by two students in 1999. We go to Denver to speak with Mary Kershner, a registered nurse, gun control advocate and founding member of Nurses Advocating Gun Safety. She has lost three members of her family to gun violence.Watch/Listen/Read
NOTE again the STRONG concern for Gun Control by a medical professional who's lost THREE to gun shooting!
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Plz go -- when you get a chance -- below to read two personal posts on this Journey blogsits about this horrific tragedy....
DENVER in heart and soul
WOW -- sometimes something can really hit HARD....
I'm especially hit in the SOUL by the recent horrific shooting in DENVER for all kinds of
reasons:
ONE: I was born in Denver and have relatives still there.
TWO: I also lived in Littleton, Colorado where the other major killing happened at
Columbine High.
THREE: I have wanted much of my life (and still want) for my major theme and song to be
not only about stopping Rights abuses like the Death Penalty but also about prevention and healing all people concerned with any of these.****************
So, I'll try to be back here in a few days, but just wanted readers to know of my concerns. Below this post is another which will let you in a few more of my current spiritual saga. Usually, I post about OTHER FOLK'S spiritual adventures...so it's about time I let you in on mine once in awhile. SOON, I intend to be back to share some of BILL PELKE's recent adventures and photos! Please keep coming back....
*******************
Here are a few of the current URLs on the DENVER TRAGEDY: Toshiba home page here Mile High Murder here CBSNews Video here CBS News here Mass Shooting at Batman Showing here Ten Killed at Denver Movie...here
****************
(There may be one among those URLs I meant to throw in about the pastor suddenly dying after giving his last sermon...not exactly on topic yet about the unpredictability and apparent fragility of life as we see and know the same. Don't have time to sort these now...so hope they make sense to you. )
*********************
Blind-Sided by Life? What Counts?
***We talked about this amazing man, husband, friend and minister who had experienced a phenomenal transformation from prisoner/drug seller/addict to your minister. For years now, he's been speaking the language of the youth, he shared about his own broken life and how he was able to be forgiven and forgive himself.
***For years he's been doing contemporary music and counseling, ministering in a church as assistant pastor as well as on the beach in Florence, South Carolina where my son had lived, worked and attended his church for about a decade. Then suddenly, this amazingly transformed minister and healer died (to this life) at the old, old (??) age of 50 -- shocking everyone who loved and knew him. (Including my dear son who'd just seen him full of life at a wedding a few weeks ago. A large church in SC has lovingly opened up to accommodate the huge crowd expected.
***I felt like writing a blogpost about how WE CAN'T LET ANYONE HIJACK OUR FAITH IN LIFE, GOD, LOVE AND OTHERS. You see, as I was listening to her sing some of the same spirituals I used to get all choked-up over, I felt compelled to tell readers here about how she and my current life of prayer was helping me to both get back and FORWARD with some of what I used to believe AND A LOT MORE.
*** (You need to know -- you might understand -- that I've felt terribly let down over the last few decades -- not by folk I've grown up with -- but by so-called high profile Christian leaders who have proved deceitful not only to lots of us former evangelical Christians but also to Americans at large who know about their shenanigans in manupulating votes for a certain party and candidates...)-- at approving of nuclear proliferation, of torture, intimidation, lying, locking persons merely SUSPECTED (and often set-up) without any hope of a decent lawyer or fair trial, ignoring of our own US and US/international aggreements, etc.
*** So you can see how folk like me (kind of a former non-drug-using hippy/artist type) as well as a lot of our very young today don't want anything to do with a Christianity and a Christ who's been co-opted for Empire America at the detriment of a whole lot of decent, innocent folk out there who are caught in their cross-fire.
*** Anyway, to get back to my story, as I opened up my computer, I was aghast to hear of the very recent TRAGEDY which JUST happened in DENVER, COLORADO. All the innocent folk who were merely watching a Batman movie when suddenly their lives were POOF over or changed forever. What a tragedy for all these beautiful people and their loved ones and neighbors! What an horrific event for ALL the people involved, the killer's family, his acquaintances, neighbors, relatives, friends, schools and the city of Denver as well. And perhaps most hellish of all is to imagine what might have happened to turn a scholarly, decent person (if the suspect turns out right into a killer! How will he live with himself now? What kind of dead end does he now face?
*** Again, I want to plead that we who are a part of seeking to end the Death Penalty ALSO do all we can to help PREVENT such a tragedy.
*** There are many many ways we can do this. We all know plenty of these: encourage help for self and others where there is a need we see and know.
*** Some of these are actually free or nearly so: 12-step programs of all kinds: NA (Narcotics Anonymous); AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) Al-Anon (for family and loved ones of Alcohol Abusers); Adult Child Programs (for Adult children of addicted; Methodone Treatment for those who've tried and failed at everything else; many youth programs; etc. etc.
*** We who are working can each pitch in: drive someone to a program where it's safe to do so; fork out part of the funds needed for rehab and raise more; ask a church or compassionate group to help out; do an INTERVENTION with professionals; make SURE our schools don't cut funding for good school counselors and if our town and community doesn't have alternative schools, scream (theoretically) until the town council keeps such a process on the agenda UNTIL THEY HAPPEN!
*** We are living in especially tough tough times...let's be part of the solution...
*** AND let's not let ANYBODY else no matte what come between each of us and the amazingly loving, accepting, unconditional GOD of our own understanding. Let's each ask every day: what counts?
*** For myself, when I've asked for help, I'm quite amazed how specifically I get answers... I suppose I have the many years I've asked for help as well yet never noticed because I used to look in all the wrong places: I don't mean these were always the usual suspects -- sometimes these wrong places were people familiar and who looked like one of my status quo, background and faith family...
***yet when I look back, I was helped in a HUGE way to understand forgiveness by a man on death row!
***I also felt such calm and healing from a fellow human rights expert's willingness to take time out with me...because of him, I overcame great big fears I carried concerning my dear adopted children's issues with lots of childhood trauma.
***Then there have been both victims' family members and family of death row inmates and prisoners -- then people of all manner of faith backgrounds, income levels, professions or the lack there-of, homeless, all manner of races and plenty of people in and from so-called "foreign countries."
***Most recently, besides my husband and children, I've been helped most to understand forgiveness by a Bangladeshi/American Muslim who forgave his would-be killer who blinded him in one eye -- even tried to stop his execution! (See Rais Bhuiyan and The World Without Hate web and movement)... I've been brought back into a truly new and creative view of history and a recognition of my own capabilities as writer/thinker/mystic/poet by some incredibly deep, heartfelt and artfelt scholar/Sufi/historians and writers. (In fact, the painting thumbnail above under the friends hugging is from the front cover of a book for children and child-like visionaries by
an amazing poet/philosopher, Allama Igbal, who had a visionary dream of Rumi showing him a spiritual meaning of history and the future.)
THE VARIETY SIMPLY DOESN'T END...
*** The last few days, I've been helped personally by a gifted writer -- woman who's mission is to empower women to be all that they can be and of all things, by a former Southern Baptist from Texas who while leaving that behind seems to indicate no bitterness...just going on to become an inter-faith expert; doctorate of Asian culture; and an expert on Mindfulness.
*** Altready, I've again learned a HEAP about forgiveness and lovingkindness from this mindfulness expert...including a few mantras that I know have changed me overnight into a better person. He looks kind of goofy in his photo, but so what?!
the flip side of this is invariably on this thread will come response stating....all guns everywhere must be disallowed...which is unrealistic considering some rural environments and professions(cat tle or sheep ranching for instance)....
So the NRA uses that...to support this....assault weaponry...any abridgement on a right to own a gun leads to outlawing all guns...which is a completely irresponsible position in some circumstances.
so they have support in rural communities....because in a sense the opposition to the NRA is so fervent in their ideology.
I don't like to blame the victim...but that is the situation in this national discussion.
The baby is thrown out with the bathwater..in the interest of urban safety the rural experience is discounted and rendered extreme is the position of gun control..when really it is not....
Even rural peoples singularly considered know...assault rifles with extended capacity clips...have not a place in america. Mix that with no guns at all and you get...support for no restrictions on gun ownership.
The flip side of it all is that the U.S. is producing, as I have said, psychotics, due to all manner of social ills and little parenting. Teachers have seen it coming for decades. How to overcome that?
Availability of guns would not be an issue if there weren't psychotics, angry unhappy individuals, and soon, very desperate people without jobs. Fear and anger are a deadly duo.
I believe you have the relationship reversed. The Republicans are captive to the NRA, who are there for the gun manufacturers who actually fund them.
Absolute nonsense. There is almost no one in the pro gun control community who is for a total ban on weapon ownership. It is almost unknown. I notice that no one in the comments are calling for total gun bans. This is a red herring and detracts from the real argument.
I grew up in the back woods. The rural argument is silly, again only the US has rural communities?
The problem is simply the easy access to guns. PERIOD.
Many gun owners don't.
Personally, I wouldn't trust an elderly person with a gun. I'm 62 and I can't see clearly without my glasses.
It ain't the guns, it those who use 'em!
Answer:
Ask these bloody corporations when is enough enough?
If those who use psychotropic drugs get so loosened emotionally that they see insanity and violence as their deal, then maybe those who use them should be more closely monitored by those who prescribe the drugs...ey?
You propose to take away a privilege/right of tens of millions while the 'drug inhibited' walk the streets?
How about a law that states that if a doctor prescribes a psychotropic, then they MUST meet with the patient once a week and monitor their behavior?
Unless you think England is a magical land of fairy princesses and unicorns where bad guys never tread...
Why are kids being attracted to this? Are the video games and all of the murder they watch on TV programming their brains? Do we glorify war with marching bands, medals, parades and ribbon stickers on our cars? Do we buy our kids toy guns for play? Who is raising out kids, parents or the TV? Is this country in such a state of fear and anxiety because of the clowns in Washington that this toxic atmosphere is affecting our kids? Are the kids witnessing massive amounts of for-profit dysfunction everywhere they look? Isn't their behavior a sign of adult dysfunction? Our kids aren't growing up with peace and love, they are growing up with hostile dysfunction and you wonder why they are going on shooting rampages??? Wake up!
Do that research on the connection between psychotropics and mass murders...it sheds an entirely different perspective on the issue.
The odds of anyone being struck by lightening or hit by a golf ball are about the same as anyone being around a psychotropic drug addled mass murderer.
All this knee-jerk about being safe is just a psycho-trick to keep Americans in fear...it's just not all that relevant in the true scheme of how life unfolds.
Ask my cousin who was a competitive shooter and had won several trophies. Oh that's right. You CAN'T ask him. He accidentally blew his head off in his garage after he tripped. That may sound cold, but it's the honest truth. We were close and I don't think he's offended by me mentioning the truth of what happened to him.
The it ain't the guns "argument" is a good indication of why we have these problems.
The logic error expressed here is better stated, “the inanimate object is not a significant part of the equation.” This is the "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument.
This argument is over-simplistic. The "human factor" in this "equation" is a constant, not a variable. If we want to change the outcome of the "equation" we have to change the variables.
Here is a thought experiment. Imagine 2 separate groups of ten men each. These groups both have an equal desire (human factor) to clear a large forest that is situated next to their respective villages. But only one group has access to chainsaws or power saws. The other group only has knives. Which group (of equal motivation) will be more successful at clearing the forest? CHAINSAWS DON'T CLEAR FORESTS, PEOPLE CLEAR FORESTS.
Guns are power tools for killing. They are enablers. The argument is, "How do we severely reduce killings?" One very effective way is to reduce access to these power tools for killing.