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.