Tookie Williams, former leader of the L.A. Crips gang, didn’t turn out to be a good poster child for abolishing the death penalty. Most who had examined the evidence thought he was guilty of the cold-blooded murders he was accused of committing.
True, he wrote some children’s books that disavowed gang violence. He seemed to have changed and found a way to be useful to society. But as California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in refusing to pardon him, Williams also never apologized or showed any remorse for his crimes. And legally, it was pretty clear that his options had run out.
Still, the battle over whether he deserved to be pardoned — and even the bungled lethal injection procedure itself — underscored just how flawed and subjective the death penalty process is.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Richard Pryor was a dangerous comic — the best kind.
You never knew what he would come up with. At his heyday in the 1970s, he broke all kinds of barriers in his landmark stand-up routines about what it was appropriate to say about race, sex, drugs and other topics. He flaunted the “n” word, then famously pledged not to use it because of its demeaning legacy. His humor had a revelatory, personal edge. He used some of his darkest moments as stand-up material (including his near-fatal 1980 free-basing accident).
He might have been the first black comic to poke fun at white people and get away with it.
Pryor influenced a generation of foul-mouthed comics, from Eddie Murphy to Chris Rock, but his brand of shock talk worked so well because it was a form of truth-telling.
Sometimes we laughed so hard that it hurt.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
“We are in a race against time,” chief United Nations nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei (in photo) said about efforts to keep nuclear weapons away from terrorists. And he warned during his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech last weekend that the risk of a nuclear disaster is as great as ever. His comments make you wonder if we would be safer now if, instead of invading Iraq, we had spent even 1 percent of the cost the war on helping secure weapons and materials in the former Soviet Union and elsewhere.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
It will now be up to the Supreme Court to decide if the redistricting changes made in Texas — under the leadership of Rep. Tom DeLay — were constitutional. The new maps — which Texas Republicans decided to redraw in 2003, seven years ahead of schedule — are credited with giving Republicans five more seats in the House of Representatives.
Whether the changes are deemed constitutional or not, they should raise questions among Americans about whether they want legislators in charge of drawing districts, which is why they often end up looking as if they were done on an Etch A Sketch. Voters could have the final say if they start supporting proposals — such as the one that recently failed in California — to take the redistricting power out of legislators’ hands.
Posted by Melissa Cooley
Reports earlier this month about a U.S. military contractor secretly paying to get favorable articles in the Iraqi press brought appropriate condemnation from Congress, and the White House disavowed any knowledge of the practice. But a 1,200-member psychological operations unit based at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, N.C., also produces “truthful messages” that it pays to plant in Iraqi and Arab press, The New York Times reported. “We call our stuff information and the enemy’s propaganda,” a former commander said. Thanks for the clarification. The Lincoln Group, a private contractor hired as part of a White House-initiated campaign to improve the U.S. image abroad, also pays to plant news stories and editorials, the Times reported. This is how we are spreading democracy?
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Another economic reality check: China is now the world’s biggest supplier of information technology products, The New York Times reported. China’s exports of laptop computers, mobile phones and other high-tech equipment totaled $180 billion in 2004, compared with U.S. exports of $149 billion. Meanwhile, we’re arguing about whether to teach intelligent design in science class.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
