the warmest memories come first
flashing a fantasy of rotting childhood
when animals could speak my name
I hear the children laughing
taste the only kiss
as water refreshes quenches
how my mouth is dry
like feigned apologies

then
copper veins short circuit
muscles in my face
the ones that let me smile
the chair is cold and numbs
I grip the arms
hands swell stung with splinters

blurred words fall into my lap
where bound legs can’t kick
dark clouds form behind my eyes
I see their tortured faces
fairies in the smoke
a haunting I regret I made

tremors       then
the smell of yellow
melting to the floor
flesh            boils

shaking
chair is hot
shaking                     endless shaking
bite my tongue can’t stop                 shaking
taste crimson bitter            thin
blinding      white     sweat and spasm
strobing silhouettes
remembering
when i         wasn’t scared
screaming    shaking
a sudden pleasure
endless    energy

then

On Sunday afternoon in  a Fayetteville, North Carolina church, Manna Church, the world,family and friends said goodbye to Shaniya Davis. Shaniya had captured the heart of the world, after it was discovered that her own mother had sold her into bondage as a sex slave,to Mario McNeill, who brutally raped and murdered the little child.

More than 2000 people were inside the church to support Bradley Lockhart, Shaniyas dad, and the man who made the decision to send Shaniya back to her mother,after having raised the child for the full 5 years of her life,which directly led to her death.

“Don’t let God’s words and don’t let his actions get you down,” Lockhart told the packed congregation. “He did this for a reason.”

Shaniya Davis funeral was open to the public and was standing room only.Lockhart urged the 1,500 crowded into Manna Church and another 500 watching the service from an adjacent building to help the community’s needy, according to press reports.

As mourners filled the church, a photo display of Shaniya Davis was streamed on the overhead projector. Never before released photos of Shaniya were displayed. These photos showed Shaniya with her father, Bradley Lockhart and her siblings.

Lockhart said, “Shaniya, Daddy love you honey. And I know you’re gonna’ be waiting for me … I’ll see you when I get there.”

White doves were released at her graveside as the little child Shaniya was laid to her eternal resting place.

Click on the link below to view a comprehensive sideshow of pictures covering the Shaniya Davis funeral…

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/10/01/crimesider/entry5356401.shtml

Child sodomizer and killer McNeill and Antoinette...Shaniyas' rapist and mom pimp...Lets hope they die soon.

This is a story that is truly disturbing for me to report, but it has to happen.

The animal that killed Shaniya Davis must be put to death, the sooner the better is my preferance.I have no mercy for this person, Mario McNeil,or her terrible mother,and the people who supported them to be able to live this long.

I hope they all burn in hell for what they did to little Shaniya.

The AP reports that the 5-year-old North Carolina girl was raped and killed the same day she was taken from her home, according to an arrest warrant released Friday. Shaniya Davis was sexually assaulted and asphyxiated Nov. 10, the day her mother reported her missing from the trailer park where she was staying, according to the warrant.

Mario McNeill is charged with first-degree murder and first-degree rape of a child in the warrant, which was issued after police said they collected hair and fibers, clothes, and a straw from his 1997 Mitsubishi Galant. He was initially charged only with kidnapping.

McNeill seemed nervous as he appeared in court Friday for a brief hearing on the latest charges. He nodded his head slightly to the judge’s questions but did not enter a plea. His lawyer, Allen Rogers, left the courtroom with his client and didn’t speak to reporters. He also didn’t return messages left at his office from The Associated Press.

The girl’s mother, Antoinette Davis, is charged with filing a false police report, trafficking her daughter and child abuse involving prostitution.

Her mother does not believe that her daughter harmed her child….so I say that they all should be thrown in jail with the general population.

She had to have known that her daughter is a pig, and was a danger to her defenseless little grand-daughter while she laid back and allowed it to happen.

She should be ashamed to support her vile and viscous daughter, and I suspect that she was a child abuser and molester, and she more than likely taught her daughter how to be one as well.

I hope they all die by the hands of the justice system.

Meanwhile, Shaniya’s father, Bradley Lockhart, appeared on Friday’s “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” where Winfrey asked him if he had anything to say to Davis. He told The Associated Press earlier that he had cared for Shaniya for several years but decided to give Davis a chance to raise her because she seemed to be getting her life together.

“Right now I just think it’s best that we let the justice system take its course,” Lockhart said on the show. “I try to keep my heart as pure as possible, and I’m sure one day I will be able to sit down and talk to her, try and understand what was going through her mind.”

All I can say is that I wish I could be a juror on that trial, because I would not hesitate to vote the death penalty for these cowards…

Write in and comment on my blog here, and let me know what type of punishment this child rapist Mario McNeill deserves, and what kind of death should her mother Antoinette Davis, that sold her for sex to settle a drug debt, should get, because she absolutely deserves the death penalty…in all 50 states.

The details of this case just make me sick, as it should all civilized human beings.

It is hard for me to look at this idiot, but here is a news report from You tube, courtesy of the AP…

Let me know how you would put him to death….let me know.

Innocent Shaniya patiently waiting to be raped and murdered by the animal Mario McNeill

Let’s pray for his swift and violent death…he has earned all of our hatred.

JARRATT, Va. — A former Army counterintelligence worker was executed by electric chair Tuesday for killing a Virginia couple, becoming the first U.S. inmate to die by electrocution in over a year.

Larry Bill Elliott was pronounced dead at 9:08 p.m. at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt. He was convicted of the January 2001 shooting deaths of 25-year-old Dana Thrall and 30-year-old Robert Finch.

Prosecutors said Elliott killed the couple to win the love of former stripper and escort Rebecca Gragg, who was involved in a bitter custody dispute with the man who was killed. Elliott claimed he was innocent.

In the death chamber, Elliott would only say he had prepared a statement for his attorneys to read after the execution.

On Tuesday, Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said he felt no compelling reason to stop the execution. The U.S. Supreme Court had refused to intervene a day earlier.

Finch was shot three times, and Thrall was beaten before being shot several times in the face and chest while her two boys, ages 4 and 6, were upstairs in the couple’s Woodbridge town home.

Two separate juries convicted Elliott of the killings. A 2002 verdict was set aside because a juror discussed the case outside of the court. He was convicted again a year later.

At 60, Elliott was Virginia’s oldest death row inmate. Virginia death row inmates can choose between the electric chair and lethal injection.

Of the 35 death penalty states, seven Southern states still offer electrocution. Two others allow it only if lethal injection is deemed unconstitutional.

The last person executed by electrocution in the U.S. was James Earl Reed, who put to death in South Carolina in June 2008 for killing his ex-girlfriend’s parents. Virginia’s last electrocution was in 2006.

people need…logic

i consider myself a fairly logical person

but so many people are just so…illogical

i didnt go to a class

because i didnt need it

and all it was

was being locked in a room for 45 minutes

doing nothing

so tomorrow

as punishment for not going

they are going to lock me in a room

for 7  hours

o yeah

i see the logic in that

i sure learned my lesson

fuck illogical people

if i’m ever put on the electric chair

my last words

“Thanks, This will sure teach me a lesson”

The recent passing of World Day Against the Death Penalty led to some personal reflections on capital punishment over at Crisis? What Crisis? It also got me thinking about some historical tidbits on the execution of the guilty (or presumed guilty).

Nothing like a day out at the arena with the family

It slices, it dices...

I’m sure some of the fun facts about state-sponsored death are pretty well known: stonings in biblical times, crucifixion with the Romans (a particularly slow form of death, in some cases: the history books record guys chatting while waiting for their final breath, or even signing contracts — maybe a book deal about their experience), or being devoured by beasts in the arena. The French went high-tech, for the 18^th century anyway, with the guillotine. In a good year during the Revolution (“good” being relative), about two thousands people got the big slice.

Let him dangle, indeed

The death penalty came to America with the English colonists (not sure what the French and Spanish did in their settlements), and in 1612, Virginia called for executing grape thieves, among others (so says the Death Penalty Information Center, which has an informative history on the subject). The Pilgrims, influenced by both common law and the Bible, had a variety of capital offenses, including: treason; murder; everyone’s favorite, “solemn compaction or conversing with the devil by way of witchcraft”; arson; rape; and the deadly duo of sodomy and buggery (bestiality). In the capital cases, the guilty was, in a phrase I always find somehow quaint, “hanged by the neck until his body is dead.”

If death penalty fans thought the guillotine was a big improvement, they really got their rocks off with the electric chair. And who was one of its best-known proponents in the United States? The Wizard of Menlo Park, a guy who knew his way around a volt and an amp, Thomas Alva Edison. Ol’ Tom promoted the use of the chair in New York largely for business reasons. No, he wasn’t making the chairs. He was trying to show that AC current, a rival to the DC systems he was trying to install, was too deadly for residential or commercial use.

Imagine the scene: It’s 1888. Edison needs someone to spread the bad word about AC, largely the creation of his former employee, Nikola Tesla. The Serb now works for Edison’s business rival, George Westinghouse. The Wizard invites another AC opponent to conduct tests in his New Jersey lab. The tests involve electrocuting dogs, two calves, and a horse with AC current, as a precursor for using a similar system as a form of capital punishment. The process came to be called “Westinghousing,” and Edison did all he could to make sure AC current was used in the first electric-chair execution. That killing took place in New York in 1890, and by all accounts it was a horrific affair, with the condemned man surviving the first jolt. Despite Edison’s efforts, however, the better system won and AC went on to become the standard electrical current, for electrocutions and more benign uses.

Thankfully, as humans found more advanced ways to kill each other with legal sanction, a few wise souls began to argue against this barbarity. The call for abolishing the death penalty started during the Enlightenment, and by the 1840s, Michigan had eliminated capital punishment for all crimes except treason. Yet in the decades that followed, only several states stopped executions, and at times, social trends would lead states to reinstate them. Finally, by the mid-20^th century, abolition seemed to pick up steam. Then the Supreme Court heard a number of cases, as death penalty opponents tried to argue executions were “cruel and unusual punishments” prohibited under the Eighth Amendment and its application to the states through the Fourteenth.

A major case came in 1972, Furman v. Georgia. In a 5-4 decision, the Burger Court struck down capital punishment laws in the 39 states then carrying out executions. But the judgment only dealt with laws that did not give juries guidelines or limits when deciding capital cases; it did not say capital punishment was always and everywhere unconstitutional (though in separate concurring decisions, Justices William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall said it was). Four years later, in Gregg v. Georgia, the Court said capital punishment is cool if state laws set standards for sentencing, taking into account such things as aggravating and mitigating circumstances.

So that’s where we are today in the good ol’ USA. Execution is fine, though a growing number of states are taking capital punishment off their books. New Mexico was the latest, earlier this year. Connecticut’s General Assembly voted to as well, but Governor Jody Rell killed (haha) the bill. Still, if you’re a death penalty foe, as I am, the numbers remain bleak: 35 states do allow capital punishment, along with the federal government and the military. The folks behind World Day Against the Death Penalty still have some work to do.

Two great-uncles of syndicated radio host Tom Joyner, sent to the electric chair for the 1913 murder of a Confederate Army veteran, were unanimously pardoned Wednesday by South Carolina.

While I’m wildly happy that they have been pardoned, I just feel like its a little way to late…

Black landowners Thomas and Meeks Griffin were executed 94 years ago after a jury convicted them of killing 73-year-old John Lewis, a wealthy white veteran living in Blackstock, a Chester County town 40 miles north of Columbia. (Two other men were also put to death for the crime.)

Joyner learned about his uncles during the taping of the PBS documentary “African American Lives 2,” which traced his heritage.  From there,  Joyner and legal historian Paul Finkelman began to work to clear the Griffins’ names.  They believed they were framed by another man who was linked to the victim’s stolen pistol.    John “Monk” Stevenson (another black man) testified against the others in exchange for a life sentence, but later told fellow inmates the four men had nothing to do with the crime and he pointed his finger at them to save himself.

More than 120 people signed a petition asked for a reduced sentence for the men, including Blackstock’s mayor, a former sheriff, two trial jurors and the grand jury foreman, but then-Gov. Richard Manning refused clemency or a pardon, sending the men to the death chamber.

On Wednesday Joyner and his attorney made a presentation to the Parole & Probation Board.  It was granted.

It took 94 years to clear these men’s names for a murder they did not commit…wow.

It won’t bring em’ back, but it will sure bring closure to the family, I guess…

Congrats, Tom!

Clean out those ears, put on those headphones and brace yourself for some excellent, heavyweight mixes…. YES!  It’s Thursday!

Craig Smith (6th Borough Project) – Sleazy Beats Mix

Greg Wilson returns to Electric Chair!

Seth Troxler Mix

PS.  If you find yourself with a few friday minutes to spare, check out the Craig Smith interview on the Sleazy Beats blog!

PPS.  See you at the Secretsundaze closing party at the Ministry of Sound this sunday… there’s an awesome line-up, inlcuding the Disco Bloodbath gang (with guest Frank Tope), Osunlade and Seth Troxler, as well as Giles and James.  Woop!

Ok, so not all of us were lucky enough to be able to attend Electric Elephant in the festival mecca de jour of Petrcane this year… Boo hoo hoo.  But lucky for us we won’t be able to forget about the love, sunshine and good times we missed out on, thanks to all the photos and videos flying about a week on from the festival in the cosmic afterglow.

Bought to you by the team behind Manchester’s Electric Chair, Electric Elephant is a small but perfectly formed party package that delivers; in terms of music, community and general good vibes – quite a feat when you consider that the summer festival landscape is both over populated and fatigued these days.  The focus is on quality with boat parties this year hosted by Electric Chair, Lowlife, Oki-Ni, Folk, Aficionado and Basement Boogaloo VS Downtown Sounds, with music brought to you by Andrew Weatherall, Theo Parrish, Daniele Baldelli, Jesse Rose, Bill Brewster, Phoreski, the Unabombers, Horsemeat Disco, Bad Passion Project, Disco Bloodbath amongst many others.

Seriously though, name dropping aside, after seeing the evidence below you will want to put Electric Elephant on your 2010 To-Do List immeeeeeediately.  See you there next year.

                             Andrew Weatherall @ Electric Elephant 2009

                                   Jesse Rose @ Electric Elephant 2009

                                 Lowlife Boat Party

                                       Oki-Ni Boat Party with Phoreski

                                    Oki-Ni Boat Party with Bad Passion Project

Issue: The Chair OGN
Creator/Writer/Grey Tones/Letters/Cover Colors: Peter Simeti
Penciler/Cover Pencils: Kevin Christensen
Editor: Erin Kohut
Publisher: Alterna Comics
Release Date: 2008
Pages: 136
Price: $13.95

“A dark character study about the choices that brings us down a path of good or evil, THE CHAIR focuses on Richard Sullivan, an inmate that has spent the past 10 years awaiting execution. Standing by his innocence, Sullivan witnesses the torture and murder of each inmate; brutal killings by the sadistic guards in the prison. Can he find a way to escape his fate or will the insane events in the prison finally consume him?”

Oh what an awesome read. It was one of those stories that has you thinking on thing only to switch it all around midway through. Just a big guessing game on how it would all work out and it works on all levels!

Artwork: 4.0 out of 5
This might be a little tricky to explain here so lets just start with the pencils. I enjoyed the darker look of the first half a bit more then after the “reveal”. The two looks though, work so well because they help show the shift in the story. What stood out to me the most though was the wording that was laid on top of some panels. It just looked fantastic.

Story: 4.2 out of 5
The story really twists you around. Half way through your just thinking you want to kill the prison guards then it all gets turned up side down. The protagonist becomes the antagonist and the way you see everything flips. It’s just great on that level alone.

Dying Breath: 4.2 out of 5
The story alone is enough of a reason to buy this. It had me hooked by the time I got to the end of the first act, and then when you get to the twist your just so wrapped up in everything. Check this one out for sure.

If you would like to buy The Chair or check out check out what else Alterna Comics is working on go to http://www.alternacomics.com/. You can also get this book through Diamond and Haven.

and here we are, back at a topic i’ve already addressed–actually, two topics. abortion and capital punishment. only this time, i’ve tossed in another somewhat related subject, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

capital punishment is murder, even if the convicts are guilty and “deserve” to be executed (and no, david, murder is not done “for no reason,” because capital punishment has a purpose, and most of the people executed by the american judicial system had purposes when they committed the crimes that got them on death row in the first place.) just like the animals tortured and abused in slaughterhouses across the country and across the world, prison inmates are being murdered. we have no right to do god’s job (if there is a god, which i’m not sure i believe, considering the current state of world affairs and the laws of physics) for him by taking the lives of criminals any more than the criminals in question had the right to do god’s job for him by taking the lives of their victims, no matter what the monetary cost. murder is wrong. if you don’t believe me, look in the bible.

for all you sadistic readers out there, consider this as well: life imprisonment is much more satisfying punishment for a criminal than letting them get off easy by taking a turn in the electric chair or getting a lethal injection, which is over in minutes. life imprisonment is for life, and it’s torturous.

for some reason, abortion and capital punishment always seem to get all tangled up with each other, probably because both are considered by some to be murder. my personal opinion is that abortion is not murder. when an abortion is done, what is removed is in most cases not a baby, but a cluster of cells (if a baby is removed in an abortion, it’s not really an abortion, because in such cases the fetus is already dead.) and yes the cells are living, but if you call that murder than you would also have to call eating vegetables murder, which brings me to my third subject of the day.

i have heard sarcastic pro-meat people argue that eating vegetables is murder just as much as eating meat is, because both vegetables and meat are living. this is a twisted argument used to justify the torture of animals in the meat industry, and it is technically true that both are living, but there is a huge difference between them. animals can breathe and think and feel, and in the meat industry they are fed disgusting hormones and chemicals, kept in criminally tiny cages, gassed, tased, and sometimes killed by having their throats slit while still conscious. vegetables, which suffer not at all in being harvested, can only grow and respirate–not breathe, respirate.

so just to recap, in case you got confused (i know, this post is uncharacteristically long): capital punishment and meat both constitute murder. this is because they involve taking the lives of living, thinking, breathing beings. eating vegetables and performing abortions do not constitute murder. this is because in both cases the only thing being terminated is a clump of cells, whether it’s the microscopic cell cluster that could someday be a baby (that may or may not be born into a good life if allowed to grow) or an entire plant.

Raising children teaches you many things that you didn’t know about the world and about yourself. Specifically at home, I always thought that the house rules would be quite simply along the lines of…..wash your hands before dinner, turn the light off when you leave the room, don’t hit your brothers with a hammer and don’t stick any of your fingers where they don’t need to be stuck. Before having the last two kids, I read the books and watched other parents. Watching the other parents was perhaps the best teaching tool I was able to find…I was a child at one time and did know some of the rules, I broke just as many and to this day it seems I’m still being charged with breaking the rules, I’m close to being a three striker as far as that goes, if being a f*ck up meant serving a life term, then more than likely I’d be sitting on an electric chair waiting for someone to pull the lever…..anyway back to where I was before I went off on that tangent…. since there was no guidebook specifically for my own children, I had to make up a few of my own rules. These rules are based on the actions of my children….no writing on furniture with cheese, just because you can get cheese on a stick it doesn’t make it a pencil….don’t use deodorant on your face….this will not make your face smell pretty.

To have a peaceful home you have to have a few rules. But don’t forget that when you have children, yours or anyone else’s in your home do your best to maintain a sense of humor….and keep in mind as the parent you can change the rules or make up new ones whenever you feel like it….on that note I have compiled a list of rules, I kept it to ten rules plus a few tips. All I can hope for at this point is a bit of sanity left over from this new mentoring venture. Muah a role model? I highly doubt a positive outcome…now I need to go blow my toes as I seem to have developed a bad case of ear wax on them.

Edison Kills Elephant As Part of Sales Pitch

On This Date in History:  In the late 19th century a technological competition was buzzing.  Thomas Edison favored the direct current (DC) as a method of transmitting electricity while rival George Westinghouse was in favor of the alternating current (AC).  AC was cheaper to transmit but the direct current was thought at the time to be safer.  In 1888, a self-taught consultant to all things electrical jumped into the arena of the battle of the titans, aka “the war of currents,” and things really got electrified.

Harold Pitney Brown

Harold P. Brown was in favor of Edison’s DC method because of its safety.  To prove this, he took the Michael Vick approach.  He tortured dogs and other animals.  On this date in 1888, Brown went to Columbia University to make a demonstration.  He exposed a caged dog to 300 volts of DC, which was about the same AC voltage that the animal could withstand.  To better make his point, he increased the voltage; first to 400, then 500 and ultimately to 1000 volts.  The unfortunate chosen specimen was a large Newfoundland mix.  The beast howled in agony but survived the 1000 volt jolt.  That was not enough though.  Brown followed up by hooking up the poor dog to a 330 volt dose of AC and he fried.  The SPCA jumped in and called for a halt before another demonstration could be made.  Thus, this date in history was also the first time a dog was saved from public execution.   Needless to say, observers not only were not amused, they were downright angry.

Now, Brown didn’t know it but he was actually making a sales pitch because it just so happened that the state of New York had just formed a commission to find an alternative to hanging as a form of capital punishment.  The commission had considered electrocution and Brown’s demonstration got them so intrigued that they asked Edison for his opinion.  Since Edison was trying to promote electricity, particularly his “safe” DC current, he was against the use of electricity in bringing about a lethal sentence.  But, he opined that if they must do it, use Westinghouse’s version of the AC current.  A pretty slick way to promote his argument that AC was so dangerous that they used it in execution.

"improved" Brown Invention at Sing Sing

Just a few months later on January 1, 1889 New York became the first state to make electrocution the favored way to bring about death  to the condemned.  And who do you suppose they hired as their expert consultant.  Why, Harold P. Brown, of course!  And what did he do to earn his pay?  Why, he invented the electric chair.    Now, the law did not specify what  type of current was to be used. But,  Brown used AC with the hope that it would bring so much bad publicity to Westinghouse and his “executioners current.”  The first man to be executed by the electric chair was said to have been “Westinghoused.”   In spite of Brown using a Westinghouse AC dynamo for his chair, his scheme failed.  Because of the lower distribution costs, Westinghouse’s AC current eventually won the electric war.  Just in case over the last few months you forgot how capitalism works….the person who can deliver a service or product at a lower cost usually gets the job.  Besides, as long as the AC current is insulated and installed properly, it can be transmitted safely as it generally has been from the late 19th century to the present day.  There is at least one anti-Thomas Edison faction out there who claims that the only original invention of Thomas Alva Edison was the electric chair.  But, that charge is patently false.  That claim belongs to Harold P. Brown.

Artist's rendering of Kemler getting Char-Broiled

Now, the war of the currents wasn’t over.  See, a convicted murderer, William Kemler, was first to make it all the way to the electric chair.  None other than George Westinghouse tried to come to his rescue, testifying that electricution through the use of one of his AC dynamos hooked up to a chair was cruel and unsual punishment.  Who testified for the opposition?  Harold P. Brown and Thomas Alva Edison.  They convinced the  court everything was just fine and dandy and on August 6, 1890 Kemler became the first person to die in the electric chair.  While Kemler probably wasn’t feeling too cheerful, Westinghouse may have had the last laugh. 

You see…they messed up the execution and Kemler did not  die with the first jolt of electricity.  Just like the Newfoundland, Kemler suffered in agony from an initial jolt.  His breathing had stopped but not his heart.  So, they gave him another jolt.  The autopsy showed the Kemler’s organs had carbonized.  In other words he burned to death…or was fried, if you like.  Again the public was not amused but Brown went back to the drawing board and “improved” his invention.  25 states followed up with adopting the electric chair as the primary form of execution.  By the late 20th century, just about all states (if not every one) had gotten rid of the electric chair because several courts had indeed ruled it was cruel and unusual punishment, as Westinghouse had said at the end of the 19th century.  Other states just did so because lethal injection was so much easier to sell to the public since it was like putting the old dog “to sleep.”  A humane death, unless you are the one who gets the same result you would get whether you’re hanged, shot, fried or injected with drugs. You’re still dead.   Edison still didn’t give up.  In 1901, he made a film that re-enacted the execution of the assassin of President McKinley.   He electrocuted an elephant on Jan 3 1904 and even filmed it (actual footage of elephant execution).  Didn’t change a thing except kill the elephant.

Thursday Evening

Weather Bottom Line:  Guess when the main wave came through on Wednesday.  By the time it got out of here it had dropped about 2 inches of rain from around 1 am to 9 am.  Then there was scattered activity later in the day.  I should think from the late night Wednesday data we have a similar situation ahead but reversed.  It would appear we have some relatively minor disturbances coming through the flow on Thursday and that should kick off scattered stuff, particularly in the afternoon.  I’ve some reports that say Thursday night we get another strong wave that will bring a lot of rain.  But, the way the data looks at this time, it looks more to me like we had on Wednesday which is a period of rain and t’storms after midnight on Thursday through sunrise Friday.  Either way, it still doesn’t look like any large scale severe events on the way, just more rain and continued mercury levels way below seasonal norms.

according to wikipedia, formal execution is at least as old as recorded history, probably older. capital punishment. the death sentence. historically, various societies have used (again, according to wikipedia) the breaking wheel, boiling to death, flaying, disembowelment, crucifixion, slow slicing, stoning, crushing, impalement, burning, dismemberment, decapitation, necklacing, and scaphism. there always have been, and always will be, people who are in favor of the idea that society as a whole has the right to execute criminals.

i personally am of the opinion that nobody has the right to play god. i’m shocked that people who think it’s wrong to kill a “baby” (abortion) are in favor of emptying out america’s prisons by lethal injection. some of them are innocent. and whether they are innocent or not, they have a right to live. if they want to die, then they could maybe request some kind of assisted suicide, but there are lots of inmates on death row who want to live, and they deserve that option. it’s not as if the only options are to let them walk free or give them the electric chair.

murder is wrong (but abortion isn’t really murder, is it?)

so some guy made a mistake, or maybe he’s crazy–because no sane person enjoys killing. does that mean he doesn’t deserve to breathe? we should try to be better than the criminals we put away. lethal injection is murder.

Young, blonde and attractive for her day, Anna Marie Hahn did not look like a serial killer.  She did not terrorize Cincinnati the way the Boston Strangler gripped that city in the early 1960s or Jack the Ripper terrorized London in 1888.  Yet, once revealed in 1937, her crimes were no less shocking to the nation. Born Anna Marie Filser in Bavaria in 1906, she was the youngest of twelve children of well-to-do parents.  As a teenager, she had an illicit love affair – she said it was with a handsome Viennese doctor – and bore a son, Oscar.  Given the circumstances, her family felt it best if she went far away – to America.

She arrived in Cincinnati in 1929.  The following year, she married Philip Hahn, a mousy Western Union telegrapher, who quit his job at the height of the Depression to help his wife run a restaurant/bakery and then a delicatessen they had bought.  Neither venture was successful, and they lost virtually everything, including their Cincinnati home.

Anna Marie loved betting on thoroughbreds far more than spreading cream cheese on a bagel, anyway.  To support her habit, she befriended elderly neighbors, particularly German-speaking gentlemen, who willingly compensated her for her companionship.  Once she had their money or control of it, she callously watched while each died an agonizing death from the arsenic that she fed them.

Her murderous ways were discovered through an incredible twist of fate.  She was arrested in Cincinnati on August 1, 1937. She never saw another day of freedom.  After a sensational jury trial that captured headlines nationwide, Anna Marie, 32, earned the death penalty as the “biggest mass murderer of the century.”  She spent a year on death row at the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus before being dragged to the electric chair on December 7, 1938.  She was the nation’s first female serial killer to die in the chair and the first woman in Ohio to be put to death in “Old Sparky.”

Anna Marie professed her innocence again and again, right up to the day she died, but afterwards her twenty-page, handwritten confession to four murders came to light.  Anna Marie is buried in Columbus, Ohio.

By Matt Horan

          New Jersey is a place where I have some happy history.  My grandparents and several of my aunts and uncles and cousins live there.  We took many trips from Philadelphia, PA, where I lived until I was 12, to visit and spend time among our close-knit extended family and friends.  I have fond memories of New Jersey.
          Of course, there is also some significant rivalry between New Jersey and Pennsylvania.  The Philadelphia Eagles and the New York [they play in New Jersey] Giants play each other at least twice per season in a heated rivalry, and Philadelphia Flyers fans always enjoy a victory over the New Jersey Devils [in hockey--you might not have heard of them].  When people from Pennsylvania want to go to the beach, New Jersey is always in the way, unless you want to go to Delaware.  The rivalry was friendly for me, with good natured ribbing going back and forth between my grandfather, uncles, and several cousins when our teams intersected.  But as a kid from Philly, the rivalry was a part of my genetic makeup.
          Not long ago, New Jersey abolished the death penalty.  As a believer in societal evolution, and as a believer that societal evolution means trending away from capital punishment, I was glad.
          I’m painfully aware that I don’t have all the answers.  There are some truly heinous and evil crimes that humankind has inflicted upon each other, and had they been visited on my family or friends, I can’t say that my heart wouldn’t cry out for ultimate vengeance.  The argument against the death penalty is not one easily made to a grieving parent or spouse or friend of a sexual assault and/or murder victim.  It is surely not easily made against a backdrop of the trial of a genocidal dictator.
          Yet it is one that must be made.  The threat of lethal injection is not something that murderers or rapists likely spend time carefully pondering over before committing their crimes.  Do they weigh the pros and cons?  Do they actually spend time and make a decision that whatever satisfaction they expect to get from committing this act is worth the risk of the gas chamber or the electric chair?  I ask these questions because capital punishment does not appear to be an effective crime deterrent method.
          There are other arguments for the death penalty.  Some say that it’s too expensive to keep criminals alive in the prison system for their entire lives.  Prison accountants don’t agree on that one, but I’m not comfortable basing the life and death decision on which saves me more money as a taxpayer.
          Perhaps families can only have peace or “closure” once they witness the death of the person that took the life of their loved one.  It’s easy for me to say, but it seems clear from the Scriptures that vengeance is not something for us to seek out.  Rather, healing or wholeness are only to be found on the other side of repentance, forgiveness, and redemption. 
          Is redemption to be found in a story that ends, “…and so we killed him”?  “…and so she was executed”?  Or is redemption to be found when we can say, “…but we forgave, holding out hope that God can bring something redeeming even out of the life of the most brutal murderer”? 
          The ultimate question on the issue of capital punishment might be which is greater: our rage, or our faith?  Perhaps New Jersey has decided, and perhaps New Jersey might be an example for us all.

From Russia with dread

Russians can sleep soundly tonight as their most recent psychopathic serial killer was just arrested. How did he put an untimely end to unfortunate prey?

A homemade electric chair.

The Russian inventor known as “Dmitry K” decided to further his knowledge of electricity by creating a device that instantly killed people who where wrapped in copper and sat in it. Of course most people don’t willingly wrap themselves in copper just because a complete stranger asks them to. Cops suspect Dmitry overpowered his 5 victims, wrapped them up, then pressed a version of Staples “easy button” to finish the job.

But it’s not over yet.

After confiscating many items in his home, including a door mat that Dmitry claimed would electrocute those who stood on it (Mormons look out), they found what appeared to be a camera.

Dmitry demanded the camera back as he claimed to erase the memory of those it recorded by using electromagnetic rays.

The irony of this whole situation is that “an eye for an eye” will be exactly what Dmitry gets as he will be facing an electric chair created not by some crazy Russian version of the sham-wow guy, but one mass-produced by the Kremlin.