WHAT NEXT?

Just a few months ago I wrote a reminder of things I had said some years ago about the death penalty when Timothy McVeigh was about to be executed in the United States for the Oklahoma bombing.  I have never been in favour of the death penalty under any circumstances and have so often spoken out against the practice.  I am firmly of the opinion that the often quoted "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth" means there should be justice for a crime committed - but not that another life should be taken.

Unfortunately, the United States - though considering itself the leader of the world - is still one of the (thankfully) declining number of countries that practices the use of the death penalty.  Although having said that - many States in the country have stopped the practice.  Texas seems to be one state that seems to revel in the practice because for many years it has had the highest number of executions each year.  Although the "authorities" constantly complain about the number of executions in China and Saudi Arabia - and I am by no means condoning them - one should take notice that America is high on the list of those countries with the most executions.

Last week the U.S. State of Georgia executed a man by the name of Andrew De Young for the murder of his parents and sister in 1993.  The event passed with little attention given to it by the media, but it was a unique and in my opinion, a grim event.

Mr. De Young was to be put to death by a method often used now in the United States - lethal injection while the prisoner is strapped to a gurney-like contraption.   A "cocktail" of three drugs is injected into the person's veins.  The first as a type of anaesthetic, the second to paralyse the person and the third to stop the heart.

In most cases the first drug has been one called sodium thiopental.  However the manufacturer has apparently stopped manufacturing this particular drug so there is a national shortage.  The result is that the U.S. State of Georgia had a new lethal cocktail of drugs made replacing the sodium thiopental with another called pentobarbital.   This is an anaesthetic sometimes used when putting animals to sleep.   It had been used at least once before in an execution, but several comments were made by those present at those events, that it seemed as if the person being executed was not totally sedated and was suffering unnecessary pain.

The Supreme Court of Georgia denied Mr. De Young's motion for the authorities to look again at a lower courts decision to replace sodium thiopental with this pentobarbital.  But the lower court even went further.   At the request of another inmate still on death row, the lower court approved a request by that inmate that Mr. De Young's execution be video taped so people - and in particuar the lawyer of the inmate - can witness and view the reaction of Mr. De Young to this new mix of lethal drugs.  In other words, the lower court approved of Mr. De Young being used as a guinea pig for research.

A couple of thoughts come to my mind over this.  First of all I ask what exactly is what is known as "cruel and unusual punishment"?  Does not someone being used as a guinea pig at the time of their execution not come under that category?  I would think it does.  The Government makes much of the fact that certain drugs that could heal diseases such as cancer and the like must be withheld for complete testing.  Then why does it allow a drug that is not fully tested for use in executions be used for that purpose.  Something hypocritical and wrong here.

Another thought in the same vein.  When Mr. De Youg's motion for the drug re-testing was put before the State Supreme Court, his execution had to be delayed twenty-four hours in order for the Justices to make their decision.  No problem with that.  However, the following day just minutes before the next hour of execution, the authorities again delayed the execution for a further twenty-four hours.  Why?  For the simple and ridiculous reason that they couldn't make up their minds as to the best place to put the video camera!!!!  So Mr. De Young was once more taken back to the waiting cell until the next day.  To me that could also be categorized as "cruel and unusual punishment".    But the media barely gave a mention to all of this and unless you read it a second time you might not even have noticed it.  What did get an entire paragraph though, was what Mr. De Young had for his last meal!!!   Where are people's priorities? 

And one last question.  When Mr. McVeigh was about to be executed a request was made for the execution to be video taped but a judge rightly dismissed the request saying it would in no time be posted all over the internet - and he was right.  So it never happpened.  We are now many years on since then and it is much easier for anyone to post anything on the internet.  How long will it take for that video of Mr. De Young's execution be available for all - young and old alike - to be seen on the internet.  Not very long, I fear.  Society is definitely going "down hill" fast.  The mind boggles at the thought of what will be next if this type of thing is allowed to continue.  I hope others speak out about this also - including those in authority in the Churches.

The authorities of the State of Georgia need to revise their thinking on these matters which currently seems to be back in the Middle Ages and certainly not that of a civilized nation.

"A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE........!

The shockwaves that were the result of the phone hacking scandal at the "News of the World" newspaper in England have reverberated round the entire globe.

When people first heard about this manner of infiltration into the private lives of people it did little more than raise a few eyebrows.  When - wasn't earlier this year or late last year? - it was learned that members of the Royal Family in England had their phones hacked together with other celebrities, people began to sit up and take notice.  Those hackings certainly were not good, but last month when it was revealed that the phone of a young girl who was eventually found dead had not only been hacked, but that her text messages had been deleted in order to keep the phone active so her family would think she was still alive - things looked bad and from bad they went to worse.

Phones of families whose sons and daughters had been killed while on active duty with the army in Afghanistan had also been hacked.  Now it has been revealed that it is likely the phones of families whose relatives died in the 2001 September 11th attacks in America may also have been targets.    One cannot help but ask is there no end to the lengths people will go to try to make money?  Have all moral principals been thrown out the window in the name of selling papers or whatever other media is involved?  It seems that is the case in this day and age.

However, having said all the of above, there are further questions one has to ask in light of all these revelations.

My grandmother - who was a much respected lady in all areas - often used to say "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing".  It was a favourite quote of hers and I have no idea from where it comes or even if it is quoted correctly.  Nevertheless it is very true.  Grandmother was not fond of what she would call "these new fangled inventions" She said people never looked into how dangerous they could or might be.  She refused to fly not because she was  scared, but because she said it was unnatural.  If God had intended her to fly he would have given her wings and she would be given those soon enough.  It wasn't until she was aged ninety that she agreed to get on a plane and fly from Dublin to London - and only then did she reverse her stance on the matter, because she said, at age ninety she could be dead by the time she got to London by boat and train. She drove a big heavy 1947 Rolls Royce Phantom, with a stick shift gearbox (5 forward gears) and two enormous head lights that stood up like army searchlights.    As the years went by grandmother refuted suggestions that she get rid of that big heavy car and get a modern car with automatic transmission which would be easier to drive.  She said the car did not have a brain, so how could it always know when to change gear.  She would prefer to be in charge of the matter herself.  She continued to drive that big Rolls - and she was a good driver - until she was ninety-eight and only stopped then because she died peacefully in her sleep.  Time to get her own wings!!

If grandmother was alive today I believe she would still be quoting "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." even more than she did before.  The cell phone is an amazing invention and exactly how it works I don't bother to find out - I just use it.  It can be a serious lifeline for many people.  However, with all these happenings at The News of the World and other places grandmother's quotation comes very much to mind.  Did people who invented it ever think further than the actual production and working of the phones?  Did they ever try to deepen their knowledge and see how it could be misused by those who misuse things for their own profit and benefit?  There are so many questions.

One can go further and look at the nuclear disasters in Japan, Chernobyl, India and other places which I have mentioned in previous posts and wonder did - at the time those facilities were constructed - the powers that be really look into all the possibilities of what would happen if anything could or did go wrong. They just confined their knowledge to the point where it would make money for them without thought of future happenings. 

With news of Committees of Enquiries being set up by the British Government, the FBI and whomever else to look into the phone hacking fiasco, I thought sense was at last prevailing, and people who knew would see that things like this should not and could not happen again.  In some quarters, that doesn't seem to be the case.

The United States is a country that has its security at the forefront of most of its actions.  Yet I was more than surprised to read this week that a new system of communication between the army/service personnel "in the field" and their home base and the Pentagon is now going into use whereby each can communicate with the other in a minimum amount of time by using some touch screen technology.   With my low level of intelligence where these matters are concerned and with the things that are going on today, I am of the simple opinion that there would be very little security in that.  That people would have no problem within a short time of hacking into such a programme seems a given.  The  fact that security is then blown to the wind seems not to have concerned the powers that be who sanction and instal such a system.

Grandmother's quotation is right.  Complete knowledge about these new communication methods, about things like nuclear technology, indeed about every new item, has to be studied and followed through to the absolute end and not just stopped along the way because some person or group of people feel they can make a fast million dollars with the product.