Taking Life From Death

Ed. does not know how difficult is the decision facing Illinois Gov. George Ryan.

Gov. Ryan is, we assume, weighing heavily the fate of 160 Illinois Death Row inmates. Ryan lost his re-election bid, so he has weeks to decide their fates. Some time ago, he imposed a moratorium on execution of the death penalty because new evidence (DNA, generally) was brought forward in a number of cases. Many convictions were overturned. That is seen as a fatal flaw to imposition of the death penalty -- the killing of innocents.

Families of murder victims are outraged that all, or even some, death row inmates may have their sentences commuted to life imprisonment.

Perhaps Ryan's actions have been nothing more than a PR front to deflect scrutiny from inquiries about his campaign organization's fund-raising practices. It's a possibility, given the vicissitudes of the human conscience (vel non).

But political and legal ethics (as I said, vel non) aside, this is a burden that I shudder to think anyone could have to face. It is not dissimilar, perhaps, from what some have felt in deciding whether to send armies to war ... or whether to unleash mankind's inhumanity upon other human beings.

It is the decision for lives, or deaths. Deaths that many would say have been earned. Ed. would have hoped that the just deliberations of 12 men tried and true would have settled the questions beyond a reasonable doubt.

So it is a messy business, this justice. Either we change the system, or we make corrections to the outcomes as necessary to prevent a travesty of justice.

But the larger question really is: What is just? Isn't it.

This is not a rhetorical question. It is one that has an answer. It's just that it's an answer that's hard to like.

Justice is a quality based in moral rightness as seen by one or more human beings. Words like "principle" and "conformity" are used in the definition of "just."

Justice, then, is always relative to those who make the rules and to those who apply them. The word "consensus" comes to mind.

Therefore, error is an inherent possibility. Always. In all things human, whether decided by one, by all or by 12.

So, the imposition of justice is a matter of choice. Legislatures must choose which laws to enact. Judges decide which laws are applicable. Juries decide the status of the actions of the accused ... and whether to impose a sentence of death.

If errors can be made, and if we believe that life is so precious as to be worth killing for, then the process must have a backstop. At this point, the role of gatekeeper is being borne by one person - Gov. Ryan. He took it upon himself, true. But now that he has, he has to decide what if anything to do about the situation. At least until we, the people, choose a better way to deal with trials, evidence, defendants and human fallibility.

So if life is so important as to be worth killing for, what to do about the mere possibility of killing the wrong person?

Ed.'s father used to say: "Lose where you lose the least."

Humankind loses more in the death of the innocent, perhaps, than it gains by the death of the guilty.

After all, isn't the avenging of that innocence lost the strongest reason for imposing the penalty in the first place?

And if we are finding cases in which we can be no more sure of the guilt of a person than of his or her innocence, then we must err on the side of innocence. Even while damning those who cared less for the innocent than we.

It is only just.

And that is our burden.

Freedom Is Not Free

Frustrated in its attempt to deny U.S. citizen Jose Padilla his Constitutional right to an attorney, the Bush-league Administration is poised to push for a Constitutional amendment that would deny all rights to anyone critical of this Presidency, the Republican Party, conservatism in general and any current or past holder of public office who is Republican.

Padilla, who is accused of plotting an attack by means of a radioactive "dirty bomb," has been held incommunicado for six months in a Navy brig. Calling him an "enemy combatant," the U.S. Justice Department argues that street gang member Padilla, who may well have aligned himself with Al Qaeda, can be held indefinitely and denied the right to counsel.

U.S. District Judge Michael Mukasey, sitting in Manhattan, hasn't quite figured it out yet, but he ruled Wednesday that Padilla can meet with his attorneys and have his detention reviewed by a court.

Meanwhile, Louisiana-born Yaser Hamdi, who was captured while fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan, remains sequestered in a Navy brig in Norfolk, Va. A federal judge had granted him access to his lawyers, but the ruling was stayed by an appeals court In Richmond, VA.

Ed. believes that the destruction caused by Osama Bin Laden, while immense and tragic, is insignificant in its scope compared to the damage to Liberty and Freedom that we are doing to ourselves.

Nobel Prize Candidate Ties The Knot

Research on world hunger, pestilence and disease apparently has no draw for the beautiful mind of Australian mathematician Burkard Polster, of Monash University.

Nope, Polster has unraveled a knotty problem of Gordian proportions. And this is his finding: When lacing shoes, neither the crisscross, nor straight-lace technique is the most efficient method. Strongest, yes. But wasteful in terms of lace material.

Nope, the most efficient method is ... TA DA ... "the bow-tie technique, in which the laces go across from one eyelet to another, down to the next one and then crisscross in a repeating pattern, uses all of the shoe’s eyelets but the least amount of lace."

Ed. has learned that in light of Polster's revelation, the Nobel Committee on Mathematics has thrown out all previous candidates for its famed prize.

To this remarkable discovery, Ed. responds: "Ya know, Burk, you should get some loafers and get out more. Meet a nice lady...go to the movies...take a walk in the park or something."

Yeah ... And His Point Is?

Baghdad officials, meaning Saddam Hussein's lackeys, are complaining that U.N. weapons inspections are a guise for spying by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and Israel's Mossad..

And just what did Saddam think that the multi-national teams of inspectors were going to do if they found evidence of deadly chemical, biological or nuclear weaspons? Keep it a secret?!

Ed. thinks, by the way, that it would be a peachy idea if the inspectors were making detailed GPS maps of Hussein's heretofore secret palaces and hideouts as they attended to their daily rounds.

Last Year It Was Credenzas

A new Playboy poll reveals that the favorite place for women to have office sex is on a desk, according to a Monday Reuters article. Men prefer couches or chairs, apparently. Overall, the pollsters discovered that half of the women respondents had sex with an office intern at work, and that two-thirds of the females had slept with a co-worker. This includes the 46 percent of women who had slept with their boss.

Reacting to this news, Ed. has begun throwing out his office furniture, replacing all sofas and chairs with desks. Ed. has also demoted himself to an intern.

Bolivia Hit By Glut Of Cow's Hooves, Snouts -- World Markets Recoil

Now that McDonalds has abandoned Bolivia, under the burger chain's global restructuring plan, what is going to happen to the Bolivian market for otherwise inedible cow parts? World options traders say the news has rocked exchanges, with March delivery cow entrails falling to an all-time low. Ed.'s Sur American sources tell him that the pullout and resulting glut were engineered to prop up the McDonald's $1 Big Tasty promotion, since the sandwich can't be made for anywhere near a buck using real meat.

In The Heat Of Battle

Ed. assumes his particular strategic military advice won't be sought by Colombian defense minister Marta Lucia-Ramirez. According to the Reuters story, Lucia-Ramirez, the nation's first female defense chief, is locked into a struggle with 20,000 Marxist rebels. Strategists brainstormed and came up with a PsyOps option: Lure the rebels into defection by showering them on the battlefield with thousands of pocket-sized pictures showing bikini-clad models representing just one of democracy's many perks. Well, Lucia-Ramirez -- a former model -- nixed the idea.

Ed. thought this was a brilliant plan -- vastly more friendly to the environment than, say, dropping tons of napalm.

BTW, according to the rules of war down there, male guerrillas must obtain the permission of a higher-ranking officer before having sex with a female rebel. No word yet on to whom a female rebel may appeal the commander's ruling.