shut the fuck up and don’t talk to me you ignorant asshole days.
I’ve avoided the Internets hoping it would help. It didn’t.
There are three branches of government. Checks and Balances. Look that shit up. And by look that shit up, I mean I want to stab my neighbor repeatedly in the face with a rusty spork.
Snopes.com before you post on The Facebook. Or anywhere. Please. There is no 28th Fucking Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Again, Look. That. Shit. Up.
The U2BM women are preparing our annual pilgrimage to sin city the end of August. I was online looking at rooms, emailing with BFF about what we would be doing and seeing and what the dramas say we have to squeeze in. BFF mentioned Thunder Down Under and too bad the dramas were going. I was reminded of last year’s trip.
We, 11, 8 and I, were walking down the strip, people watching. We saw a sign similar to this one:
The flip side of that sign had the same men facing the opposite direction wearing nothing but thongs. 11 said to me “mom, are those naked butts?” and I said yes. She said “I can’t wait until I grow up.”
That is when I fainted.
The Supreme Court has determined that lethal injection, as used in 35 states, is “properly and humanely applied”. I passionately disagree.
I don’t usually blog religion (but that post is coming) or politics. However, I must voice out loud on this particular issue. For, I do not think that capital punishment in and of itself is cruel and unusual. However, I will argue to my death that the way capital cases are arbitrarily determined and prosecuted is what should be considered cruel and unusual.
You see, two different people can commit the exact same crime, in two different towns, killing two separate victims during say, a robbery. It doesn't even matter what the killers real motives were. What matters is who the prosecutor is and what the laws of the town are. One killer can be charged with a capital crime and face the death penalty while the other is charged with a non-capital crime and face life in prison. It is solely up to the prosecutor (and the laws in place). A prosecutor who happens to be a human being and the last time I checked, a person totally capable of making a mistake. (Yes, it makes a difference what the race or education level of the killer is because studies show non-Caucasian men are more likely to be charged with a capital crime. Of course, there are also studies and cases upon cases of inadequate defenses to poor, uneducated men, regardless of their race).
I read an article once about a retarded man who was on death row. He ordered his last meal, which included a slice of Pecan pie for dessert. When the guards came to get him and escort him to the death chamber, one asked why he didn't eat his pie. He asked them to save it for later.
This made me cry for many hours. Many hours of thinking and playing Devil's advocate. Many hours of wondering how the state could execute a man who clearly had no idea what the hell was about to happen. It seemed so excruciatingly unfair to me.
If you read the paper or check the news sites, you can find countless number of people who are being freed because of DNA evidence. One person in Texas was freed this week after 23 years. He was convicted of rape on the faulty identification of the victim. DNA proved that he couldn't be the rapist. Have you read the book by John Grisham, An Innocent Man? This book tells a true story about what happens to far too many people in America. It is a sad reality of our justice system.
Without some absolute way to prove that we are killing the there is no doubt in your mind, no one else could have possibly been the killer, AND some way to make the doling out of capital cases less arbitrary and emotional, then we need to put a stop to it. I for one think that having the death penalty is fine, it is the application of picking and choosing based upon emotion and some other litany of items that seem to be ticked off a laundry list if the killer fits the bill: weapon: check; blood on hands: maybe; coerced confession: check - THAT is what I find to be cruel and unusual.
(stepping off my soapbox now)
This week has been crazy. I have worked and worked and by the time I get home, I collapse into a puddle of goo on the couch until bedtime. Last night, I fell asleep around 7:45 and woke up at 10:30. I promptly soaked in a hot bath for a half hour and went straight to bed.
I’ll post on the vacation soon. However, nothing that happened that week compares to the excitement of my first day back to work this past Tuesday.
I was standing in the bathroom, putting on my face when 8 comes running down the hall with my cell phone. It is my receptionist.
She says “Hey, did you get my text message?”
Me: “No.”
She says “I can’t come to work today because I’m in the hospital.”
Me: “holy crap! Are you okay?” I thought she’d been in an accident.
She says “Yea, see, the thing is, ummm, I didn’t know (pause)...I didn’t know I was pregnant and I went into labor this morning.”
I’m not kidding people. I couldn’t make this shit up. Thing is, she didn’t look pregnant. She is not a thin girl, but certainly I would have thought I could tell she was pregnant. Shit, I would have thought SHE could tell she was pregnant. And more importantly, how the fuck do you NOT know you’re pregnant?
Could you imagine? Standing there, brushing your teeth, minding your own business and Swoosh! your water breaks. Did she know that was it? Or was she all “Huh. I haven’t peed my pants since kindergarten. That’s weird.”