Court Ruling Leads to Botched Execution in Arizona

We have what I’d call an “interesting” execution scenario which played itself out in Arizona today.   Some appellate court stayed an execution by lethal injection in the state of Arizona involving a guy who committed a brutal double murder in 1989 and he was sentenced to the death penalty.  But then political pressure was applied and the Supreme Court of Arizona overruled the lower court and said to proceed with the execution as planned.  There had been doubts raised about the quality and nature of the drugs that were to be used for this lethal injection.  Here’s where it gets interesting.  Because it was a botched execution and it took our prisoner nearly two hours to officially “die” and he gagged and wheezed in a seeming state of agony and now Governor Jan Brewer says she’s going to review the execution procedure.  The thing is maybe the republicans KNEW this is what would happen to the prisoner and this is in fact just what they wanted.  And of course the relatives of the victim say “Well, however much the prisoner suffered it wasn’t nearly as much as the suffering inflicted on his two victims”.  Personally I find it difficult to argue with this logic.  Am I right in this assertion?

For the second day in a row Bengurian Airport in Tel Aviv has been deserted, closed down virtually because all of the nations of the world have extended the flight black-out to Israel for a second 24 hour period in a row.  Dr Levy never mentioned on Monday how his plans are shaping up to travel to Israel later this year.  The UN has voted almost unanamusly to condemn Israel as a perpetrator of War Crimes, with the United States one of the only nations that did not for this resolution.  But I think to be fair FIRST they should bring Hamas up on War Crimes charges because it’s also a war crime to use civilians as human shields.  75% of the people killed so far in Gaza have been completely innocent civilians.  Once you have dealt with Hamas, then the UN can deal with Israel.  Unfortunately, I don’t think the UN has the moral consistency to do this.  Too often the UN- - is just a mouth piece for the most vile of nations.   Now there is a security problem with the Brooklyn Bridge of all places.  Because a couple of nights ago at just about three thirty in the morning all of the lights went out on the bridge.  Two US flags were removed from the top of the two towers, and they were replaced with two white flags.  Perhaps it was just a stunt of someone who did it on a dare.  But naturally there is concerned with 9 – 11 not being that long ago, and there a lot of government buildings within a mile of the bridge.

I caught the Norman Goldman program today.  And I have to wonder whether Norman Goldman is suffering from “burn out” and will soon go the way of Randy Rhodes and Ed Schultz on a daily basis.  Normal was preaching the virtues of “patience”, which I consider highly misplaced.  His patter made little sense today because he admitted the American voter has never been more apathetic, and the voter turn out for this November election is expected to be way down, particularly on the democratic side.  Of course certain members of the FOX tea party brigade will vote come hell or high water rain or shine.  I wish we liberals had that kind of diligence, but we don’t.  The whole term of “patience” is badly used by Norman here, just as it is badly misused by Evangelical Christians.  The word in normal usage refers to a process that takes a set period of time.  Such as a repair man might tell you it will take two hours to repair the air conditioning system.  But in this case there is no “ongoing remedial process” but rather a case of just “dropping out” and letting it all go to hell in a hand basked, as I have spoken of many times in recent blog postings.   No normal person would NOT lose patience with President Obama for instance who now is on his 18^th money raising trip here to Southern California.  They say the White House will charge each person $32,000 just to be photographed with the President.  We know of Clinton offering nights in the Lincoln Bedroom - - for a price.  It seems to be a case of Obama fiddling while Rome burns.  We remember how he turned down a trip to the border on the Rio Grande - - in order to attend a money raising trip in Austin.   This is in no way to justify what Sean Hannity said just today- - in his rapsidy of praise for Vladimir Putin.  This sort of behavior on the right by FOX news and the like is nothing short of sick, in going on and on about what a strong and effective leader Putin is and how weak and ineffective the President is.  It would seem people like Sean Hannity have a man-crush on Vladimir Putin.  There used to be a saying that “Politics stops at the water’s edge”.  The Bible tells us to pray for our Leaders.  This is what Pastor Mark of Calvary Anaheim used to do- - even with Clinton in office, where I’d have just as soon wished he’d just resign.  But even my reason for that was because I valued the office of President of the United States too highly to see it cheapened.  But Sean Hannity is just as guilty of cheapening the office of President, and respect for America in general.  I’d like to revive the slogan “Love it or Leave it” and if these people are so in love with Putin why don’t they just make the move to Moscow?   And yes, I think all of this should make the average American citizen - - restless, and impatient.  This is only a healthy and appropriate response.

There are at least four views of “Reality” and I’d like to just name them for you.  The first is that “Everything is an illusion and nothing we see is real”.  This is the Buddhist view of the universe.  It’s like we’re all some cogs in a gigantic holideck program of the Enterprise and that some master computer program is actually the thing that is running everything.  There is the opposite view of course in that “Nothing is anything other than exactly as we see it, and if we can’t prove scientifically, beyond a reasonable doubt, that it exists and is real- - then Ipso Facto it does NOT exist, and shouldn’t even contemplated at any time to exist by any sensible person.  We then have Subjectivism, which means that the human Mind is the sole determiner of what is real and what is not, and that if we have enough Faith as a mustard seed, then we too can order that Mt Baldy pick itself up and throw itself into the ocean.  This is a view that kind of says that “everybody has a little of God in them and all we have to do is discover and tap into it”.   The thing demonstrably wrong with this view is what I call “Doubt blindness”.   You’ve heard of tine deafness- - and there these cat litter commercials that speak of “nose blindness’ where the person can’t smell how putrid his apartment even smells from the cat’s litter box.  So you are left with the necessity- - not of Faith in any true sense- - but rather “Doubt eradication”.  Because if there are any seeds of doubt- - God won’t answer your prayers or whatever.  The obvious logical thing wrong with this is that various substances Brady Black could tell you about- - are very useful for “doubt eradication” and hence marvelous faith boosters, such as booze, pot, cocaine.  Just take another shot of Faith.   No Christian wants to admit that such well laid illogic of theirs can be defeated by such a simple example.  Finally of course we have Objectivism.  This is opposed to the previous doctrine called Subjectivism.   Under Objectivism an object or entitie’s existence is not dependant on any THOUGHT you may or may NOT have.  But also- - there are things that may exist that we have no way of proving.  For instance I have spoken of myself not as Earth centric but Universe centric.  If it happens in this Universe I care about it.  But if it happens in some parrellel Universe- - even one with a twin Earth and Sun like our own- - then I don’t care what happens there because it can’t possibly affect me.   I would like to revive an axiom I think I introduced just about two years ago this time of year.  I call it “The Forbidden Twelfth”.   That is- - like the Forbidden Fruit of old- - there are certain things- - dimensions- - that are roped off and off limits to us.  It’s kind of along the lines that right now we can’t look up and see the constellation of Cancer, and I said Cancer- - in the heavens, because right now the sun is in this constellation.  People wonder whether there is ‘forbidden knowledge’ that the minute we become acquainted with it- - we suffer the Curse of it.  I can’t prove this per se - - but I suspect that it may be true.  It’s almost like a separation of enmity spell.  Well, OK that’s enough for today.

Finally, here is a bit of a Mia Copa from earlier today:   I should apologise for the poor quality of the lead posting in the blog ‘Rocca Rolla”.    The first two titles are promising “You Broke the Rules” and “Rush Limbaugh is in Big Trouble” but most of what’s in these blogs seems to me now to be filler trivia.  But that’s what happens when I am depressed- - things I thought were brilliant at the time now seem suddenly boring to me.  But there is a place where I say that “Congress has just over two months to get needed legislation done before the August recess, and I don’t think they’ll make it”.   Now they’ve got one week, and you know they won’t get anything done.  That’s all she wrote for this congress.  It will give the voters an opportunity to reassess this congress.  In terms of the cryptic stuff in purple- - it’s more cryptic than the stuff in “Karmic Suicide”.   But you know there is a silver lining because you can always come to ME to explain it- - rather than if you read something in a fortune cookie or the I Ching or something and are completely lost for an interpretation.   Dr Levy had a quotation that sounds like it was from a Zen Buddhist or something.  “In the beginning there was Nothing- - and then Something went wrong”.  Who is going to explain that one.  It’s one of those sayings designed to drive you mentally nuts.