The Death Penalty Revisited

As it has become fairly obvious on my blog, I don't agree with conservatives much. As Bill Maher stated on his most recent show, the GOP has become so far right that their next move will probably be to reinstate slavery (and the "Georgia Works" plan seems to be a step in that direction.) In most regards, I feel that conservatives lack compassion for their fellow man, and completely disregard the lessons we all learned in Sunday school. I'm certainly not a religious man in any regard, but I think I can say for certainty that if Jesus were alive today, he'd be a bleeding heart liberal.

But...I digress. My topic here is the death penalty. And this is one (of only a few) things that I agree with conservatives on. I support the death penalty. I believe in an eye for an eye. If someone takes the life of another in cold blood, they deserve to lose theirs.

On Wednesday, we had two high-profile executions here in the US: Troy Davis and Lawrence Brewer. Both are now dead, and while one clearly deserved it, the other did not.

Lawrence Davis was a white supremacist who dragged a black man (Lawrence Byrd) from the back of his pickup truck until his arms and head eventually ripped off his body. On Tuesday, Brewer stated "I have no regrets. I'd do it all over again." So, I say good riddance to this trash. Society really doesn't need racist, homicidal rednecks like this walking the earth.

Troy Davis, on the other hand, has maintained his innocence for the last 20 years. He was convicted of murdering a police officer, but evidence has since began to point in another direction. Seven out of nine eyewitnesses have recanted their testimony. There was no DNA or murder weapon found. Another person even admitted to committing the murder. Personally, I have no idea whether Davis did it or not. The point is that now there is doubt. If there is doubt in a persons guilt, there should be no execution. Reduce the sentence to life in prison.

It seems that for every high profile case of someone who obviously deserves the death penalty, we have cases like this and like Cameron Todd Willingham, who was likely also innocent. Willingham supposedly murdered his children by setting his house on fire, but fire experts later concluded that it wasn't arson, and was probably accidental. Still, Governor Rick Perry wouldn't halt or delay the execution. Perry even went as far as to remove the investigators from the case because he didn't what they were finding: proof of Willingham's innocence. If evidence is ever found that an innocent man was executed, we will never know about it. Public opinion would change, and the system as we know it would be called into question. The Powers-That-Be can never allow this.

I'm still a supporter of the death penalty. If someone murdered someone I love in cold blood, I would want to see them die for it. Convicted "Night Stalker"serial-killer Richard Ramirez should already be dead, but for some reason he's still sitting on death row. He scared the crap out of me when I was a kid in the 80's living in Southern CA. But...when you've got cases like Davis and Willingham, it seriously makes me begin to question my beliefs.

Video - Austin City Limits 2011 - Stevie Wonder #2

For my last post on ACL 2011, here's one more from the biggest name at the festival, Stevie Wonder, performing "I Wish."

I realize the quality on these videos isn't that great. I'm still using my Nikon Coolpix S4 that I bought in Taiwan about 5 or 6 years ago. The thing I liked about the camera at the time was that it had 10X zoom, which allowed me to get some good close-ups.

Video - Austin City Limits 2011 - Coldplay #2

Here's one more video from the Coldplay set, which was really a highlight for me since I was sitting so close to the stage.

In this video, they are performing the song "The Scientist."

Video - Austin City Limits 2011 - Cee Lo

Cee Lo performing the Gnarls Barkley hit "Crazy."

Cee Lo was a bit of a disappointment. He came on stage late, left early, and talked a lot between songs, mostly about how he was "323 pounds of pure sexuality." Yeah...okay.

Video - Austin City Limits 2011 - Arcade Fire

Arcade Fire performing "Wake Up."

Arcade Fire is pretty good, but I didn't really understand why they were the closing act of the entire festival. Last year it was the Eagles, which makes sense, so you'd think they would have another dinosaur band closing, like the Rolling Stones or Fleetwood Mac, or Paul McCartney, Neil Young or U2. Or even newer bands like Pearl Jam or Soundgarden. Unless I'm totally underestimating this band, I thought they are still primarily a college, underground band. Anyway, let's hope that next year they get a reunited Pink Floyd. :)

Video - Austin City Limits 2011 - Randy Newman

Randy Newman singing "Short People."

I only know about a half-dozen Randy Newman songs, and I'm not much of a fan, but for some reason I had the "Short People" 45" single. Don't ask me why.

Austin City Limits 2011, Day 3

The Austin City Limits Music Festival is finally over. Sunday didn't have quite the star power of the previous two days, but since there wasn't anyone I was overly excited to see, it allowed me to sample several bands on different stages throughout Zilker Park. I caught little bits here and there of: The Lee Boys, Death From Above 1979, Manu Chao La Ventura, Fleet Foxes, Bomba Estereo, Jack Ingram and Randy Newman (I saw half of his show). Most of the acts I couldn't really get into. One was country music (Jack Ingram) which I don't care for at all, nor do I like Latin music (Manu Chao). I watched most of Arcade Fire's closing set, but left about 15 minutes early to avoid the mad rush to the shuttles. If you left early, you could get to a shuttle pretty quick, otherwise it was easily a 90 minute wait.

It was a pretty fun experience overall, but it's not likely I would do the 3 day pass again. By the end of the day, it's pretty exhausting. It was nice to see a lot of old people in the crowd among the teenage masses, though.

Video - Austin City Limits 2011 - Stevie Wonder

Stevie Wonder singing "I Just Called to Say I Love You" at ACL, 2011.

Austin City Limits 2011, Day 2

Here's some pictures from day 2 of the Austin City Limits Music Festival. The kids came with us this time, so we spent some of the time watching kids bands like "Recess Monkey." We also caught Cee Lo, who wasn't that good. The highlight was the closing act, Stevie Wonder.

Video - Austin City Limits 2011 - Coldplay

Coldplay performing "Yellow" at ACL 2011.

Austin City Limits 2011, Day 1

Here's a few pictures from the first day of the Austin City Limits Music Festival. We didn't arrive there until close to 6pm, so we only caught two bands, Bright Eyes and Coldplay. I had never heard of Bright Eyes, and wasn't particularly impressed, but Coldplay put on an excellent show.

Ramblings #12

I was reading an old blog I wrote back in October of 2008, where I wrote that Barack Obama would become president by a landslide vote. I was right, of course, and I think now I can safely say that, even though it's 14 months away, Obama will lose by the same landslide in 2012. On Tuesday in New York, a Republican took the House seat that was recently vacated by disgraced democrat Anthony Weiner. What does it say when the Republicans start winning in places that always vote Democrat? It says that the Democrats are in for a horrendous loss next year.

But, you know, we deserve it. The Democrats have not done a good job. I've gone on numerous rants about Obama in previous blogs, so I won't keep beating a dead horse. It doesn't mean I'll jump to the dark side and vote Republican, though, and watching the GOP debate the other night just confirmed my beliefs that this party will never be for me. During one particular exchange, GOP candidate Ron Paul was asked if he would let a 30 year old man without health insurance just die if he was hospitalized from a terrible accident.

"Yes!" shouted several members of the audience, followed by laughter and thunderous applause.

To give Ron Paul some credit, he never actually said yes himself, but he kind of avoided the question, instead implying that maybe a "church" would help the guy out.

I don't want to get into health insurance again. I think I've already talked about that enough. I agree (to some extent) that "healthcare begins at the supermarket." People eat crap, and their poor health is a result of their own bad decisions. However, sometimes what you eat at the supermarket has nothing to do with medical emergencies. Healthcare is just one of many issues that I disagree with Republicans on. I also disagree with them on: taxes, abortion, gay marriage, military spending, regulations, climate change, wages and unions, etc. I could go on. I think the only issues where we see eye to eye are the death penalty and immigration reform. So, as much as I am disappointed with our current Commander-in-Chief, I won't sell out my beliefs just because I'm mad.

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The Texas drought is really wreaking havoc on our front yard and backyard, and since we're only allowed to water our lawn two days a week, there isn't really much I can do to save it. We've got some hideous looking cracks on our lawns. It almost looks like there's been an earthquake and the ground is opening up. It's going to take lots and lots of rain to fix this, and I don't see that happening anytime soon. We haven't had a good rainstorm here in months, and when it does rain, it's just for about 10 minutes.

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Sara is just tearing up 1st grade. She's gotten a score of "100" on every test that she has brought home. She even got "104" on one test, since she got the "bonus question" correct. I'm really proud of her.

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This weekend is the big "Austin City Limits" music festival. I'll post some pictures from the festival over the next several days.

(Picture: The GOP contenders for President. A scary bunch, to say the least)

Pictures of New York, 2001

As I mentioned previously, on my recent trip to Taiwan, I managed to salvage some pictures I took over the last 10 years, which included some pictures from England, France, and New York.

On the 10th anniversary of 9/11, I thought I'd share these pictures I took of New York the last time I was there, which was May of 2001. It seems pretty weird now that I was there just a few short months before the attack. I took several pictures from the top of the World Trade Center, but unfortunately, like the towers themselves, they didn't survive. There is one picture, though, where you can see them in the background.

Remakes and The Death of Hollywood

As I've mentioned before on this blog, when I was a kid my mom used to take me to the movies every Sunday afternoon. She did this for several years. From about 1982 to 1986. This was back when movies were still cheap, and I could still get in under a child's ticket price. I saw a lot of crap, but I saw a lot of good movies too, and some of those movies still bring back some fond memories.

Over the years, from what I presume is because Hollywood has completely run out of ideas, they are remaking many of my favorite movies from the 80's. Just recently I saw two remakes of movies that I really loved as a kid: "Conan the Barbarian" (from 1982) and "Fright Night" (from 1985). Last year, another one of my favorite 80's movies, "Clash of the Titans", was also remade. And in October of this year, we have a remake of the John Carpenter classic "The Thing" coming out. This is after the totally crappy remakes of other classic Carpenter movies that have preceded it, like "The Fog" and "Halloween."

While "Conan" and "Fright Night" (the remakes) had a few cool scenes here and there, for the most part, they sucked. While some would argue that the original "Conan", with Arnold Schwarzenegger, is hardly a classic, I like it a lot. I also think it still holds up well today, unlike "Fright Night" and "Clash", which definitely look like the products of the 80's that they are. Both the new "Conan" and the old one are basically simple revenge stories. But the original had that great score, sweeping landscapes, and a story that took its time and allowed you to know the characters, and to feel the triumph when Conan finally kills his enemies at the end of the film. The new one is just one battle scene after another with fake CGI blood flying everywhere.

Hollywood should really give up this remake trend. They rarely work, and most of the time they tank at the box office (both "Conan" and "Fright Night" bombed). For every decent remake that comes out (Dawn of the Dead, King Kong (2005), Scarface (1983), The Thing (1982), you get tons of crap remakes (Psycho, The Omen, Arthur, Fame, The Fog, Friday the 13th, Halloween, House of Wax, Rollerball, The Wolfman, The Wicker Man, etc.) I'm sure I've only just scraped the surface here.

And more are on the way, including the previously mentioned update of "The Thing" and "Total Recall", with Colin Farell taking over Schwarzenegger's role. Although they haven't been announced, I'm fully expecting to see remakes of "Jaws" and "Star Wars" in my lifetime. "Star Wars", with all its ridiculous changes made by George Lucas, is practically a remake now anyway. With the blu-ray release of the 6 Star Wars movies coming out on September 16th, I see that Lucas has added some new dialogue to "Return of the Jedi." During the climactic scene where The Emperor is killing Luke, Darth Vader now shouts "No! Nooooo!"

(Here's a link to the video):

http://youtu.be/27RVJJfny4I

What the hell, Lucas???? First you've got Greedo firing first in the Cantina, now Vader shouting "Nooo!" at one of the most emotional scenes in the original trilogy?? I'm hoping that when Lucas dies, someone goes in and fixes all this crap.

Ok, I realize I'm sounding like a Star Wars fanboy geek, but this is the equivalent of Paul McCartney going back to the original recording of "Hey Jude", adding a Kanye West rap section in the middle, and then never releasing the original version again.

The Golden Age of Hollywood is long gone, my friends. Everything is now about marketing, demographics, and catering to the lowest common denominator. A filmmaker like Stanley Kubrick would be box office poison today. A five minute scene of dialogue would now have to have at least one explosion in the middle (in 3D, of course). It's no wonder so many kids have ADD nowadays.

I haven't completely given up on movies. Occasionally, you'll get a classic every once in a while. Steven Speilberg, Woody Allen, Martin Scorcese, The Coen Brothers, Quentin Tarantino, Terence Malick, Christopher Nolan, and Ridley Scott are still making movies. But in 2011, finding a good movie is as elusive as finding a trustworthy politician.