William Lynd is scheduled to be executed for murder.
If all goes as planned, Georgia will execute William Lynd tonight for the crime of killing his girlfriend in 1988.
Retribution is the goal of restoring the scales of moral justice to balance as possible.
What, then, is the proper retribution for murder? As death penalty opponents are so fond of saying, “Executing the murderer will not bring his victim back to life.” That, of course, is true. It’s just as true, however, that giving him LIPWTPP will also fail to accomplish a resurrection. And that’s the point. There is simply nothing the murderer can do to truly restore the social fabric to the status quo ante for the obvious reason that there is no way to replace missing people. Nonetheless, as history and the Bible so clearly have held, blood alone can atone for shed blood. By requiring his life of him, we make him pay the only correct price and force him to fully pay it. This balances both the moral fabric as well as the murderer’s personal register.
Once we comprehend this distinction between murder and all other crimes (which can be restituted for), it should be clear that retribution not only justifies execution, it requires it. Execution is the only correct penalty-in-kind for murder, and retribution is the only value so far analyzed which justifies taking this most precious of payments from someone.
With several more executions lined up in death-penalty states across the country, it is important to once again focus the debate on the stark reality that the death penalty extinguishes the lives of breathing, joking, flawed and thoroughly human beings. Even if the means of taking those lives were as gentle as touching the forehead of the condemned, the ultimate challenge to our humanity would be just as vivid as a gallows, a guillotine or a firing squad.
Methods of execution that force us to confront the brutality of what we are doing more honestly express both society's rage against crime and the brutality of its consequences. For instance, there was the misery of Allen Lee "Tiny" Davis's execution in a Florida electric chair, when blood poured from his head and his contorted face could be seen through the poorly fitted mask as he struggled to stay alive, breathing ten breaths after the electricity stopped. Or the flames that sometimes shoot from the orifices of people in the electric chair. Or the extended "cut down" procedures necessary for inmates with bad veins who are being killed by lethal injection. Or the humiliating bowel releases of people hanged in the public square.
As our country resumes executions following the Baze decision, we must be mindful of the fact that extinguishing the life of a healthy person who wants to live cannot be done without violence. Whether William Lynd is led kicking and screaming to the gallows in a public square or goes to his death quietly, without any expression of pain as he succumbs to the poison flowing unseen in his bloodstream--he has not died peacefully. And we should know that--no matter the manner of execution--he never will.
This Georgia lake has seen wetter days.
As water supplies dry up in the southeast, Georgia and Tennessee have become embroiled in a dispute over access to water from the Tennessee River. The argument could go to the U.S. Supreme Court, and could end with a $2 billion settlement in order for Georgia to gain access to the river water.
Truly phenomenal volumes of water are being wasted as a consequence of insane agricultural policies. In parts of the West, for example, highly subsidized water, sold to farmers at around 10 cents per 1,000 gallons, is devoted to irrigating price-supported surplus crops in the desert, irrigation that is so excessive that federally funded cleanup measures are frequently required. Pools, dishwashers, toilets, showers -- all pale in comparison with the waterlogging of suboptimal cropland in 19 western states, a task for which 80 to 90 percent of America's total water use is dedicated.
It's no wonder that when a dry spell occurs the entire system collapses.
"Resource wars" are things that happen elsewhere. We don't usually think of our country as water poor or imagine that "resource wars" might be applied as a description to various state and local governments in the Southwest, Southeast, or upper Midwest now fighting tooth and nail for previously shared water. And yet, "war" may not be a bad metaphor for what's on the horizon. According to the National Climate Data Center, federal officials have declared 43 percent of the contiguous US to be in "moderate to extreme drought."
Certainly, you've seen the articles about what global warming might do in the future to fragile or low-lying areas of the world. Such pieces usually mention the possibility of enormous migrations of the poor and desperate. But we don't usually think about that in the "homeland."
Maybe we should.
Where the boys aren't: Single-sex schooling is gaining traction.
The long-simmering debate over single-sex versus co-ed schooling is heating up again. A rural Georgia school district is set to become the first school district in the nation to go entirely single-sex, with boys and girls in separate classrooms -- a response to years of poor test scores, soaring dropout rates and high numbers of teen pregnancies.
The argument is that boys and girls learn differently, so they should have different classroom settings. But the idea runs counter to long-cherished notions of equality and non-discrimination.
Should public schools be free to segregate by sex? Would boys and girls benefit? Or are the benefits negligible?
In October 2006, the New York Times reported that the Bush administration had given public school districts “broad new latitude to expand the number of single-sex classes, and even schools.” Schools are responding to the new flexibility, which represents a remarkable change from past policy. “You’re going to see a proliferation” of single-sex schools, Paul Vallas, who is now in charge of the New Orleans Recovery School District, told the Times.
Let’s hope so, because both boys and girls stand to benefit, especially in urban areas.
"Single-gender, public academies need to guard against becoming a new form of tracking or resegregation," a 2001 California study said. "Segregation might lead to a safe or comfortable space for some populations, but they clearly create tensions for race and gender equity."
The academic success of both girls and boys was influenced more by small classes, strong curricula, dedicated teachers and equitable teaching practices than by single-sex settings, the researchers said. This finding reinforced those of a 1998 study by the American Association of University Women that concluded that separating the sexes does not necessarily improve the quality of education for girls.
