Posted by
Rick Amato on Sunday, July 15, 2007 9:53:49 PM
It is truly is amazing the extent to which we will go to into in this country to package things in such a nice, clean, antiseptic, feel-good way.
Whether it be “no result” youth soccer games- where no score is kept so as to not hurt the self-esteem of the losing side, or a recent decision by one Orange County school district to issue certificates of completion to high school students who are scheduled to graduate- but cannot- because they were unable pass the required Exit Exam.
Sure it might be the school districts way of washing their hands of kids they’ve given up on- but do you suppose these certificates are really going to have any real value to prospective employers? If so perhaps the certificates should be issued to the employers as well.
But all of that is child’s play in comparison to a recent announcement by the state of California regarding it’s new lethal injection plan for the execution of death row prisoners.
The new plan calls for the careful selection of an execution team, rigid team member training, and for one team member to be present at all times in the death chamber.
I don’t know about you but I have a real hard time stringing together the words 'team member and execution' in the same sentence. I feel more comfortable using it to describe a bunch of computer programmers from San Diego’s Sorrento Valley having a work day lunch together than I do an execution plan for death row inmates.
The state of California went on to say the new execution program will consist of a minimum of 20 team members who will have performance reviews , and that one team member will be close enough to the inmate to talk to him, gently shake him, and lightly brush his eyelash, to make sure he unconscious.
This all makes me wonder what we are coming to in this country, or at least in California. The last time I checked these were hardcore inmates who have been convicted of the worst most hanious crimes imaginable.
But in the end I suppose it’s a lot more humane than what happened to ole’ Yankee Jim back in the 1800’s. You see Yankee Jim lived in California’s 1st Spanish settlement, Old Town right here in San Diego.
One day Yankee Jim made a bad decision to take San Diego’s only row boat out for a joy ride. Unfortunately the sheriff did not see the humor and sentenced the radical to death by hanging!
Yankee Jim thought is was all a prank and was laughing and joking up until the time the noose was being slipped around his neck.
But it was real alright, and things got worse as Yankee Jim standing at 6’ 5” was much taller than the average man in the 1800’s, for whom the gallow had been built to accommodate.
The trap door opened, his body dropped through the through and his toes, ever so slightly touched the ground- a nd there he dangled for an hour before coming to his final resting place.
I guess it was a time when men were men.
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