Some time ago, I added a link to Sexy Beijing over there on the right hand side. Completely forgot to recommend it, though. What is it? A very well produced show tackling life in modern Beijing (“love, lust, youth culture and street life in China’s capital”), hosted by (the smokin’ hot) Su Fei. Start with this episode (you’ll recognize the opening credits in about two seconds).
Category: Society Page 48 of 69
Per the Virginian Pilot:
Kevin Green, 31, was pronounced dead at 10:05 at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt. He died by injection for the August 1998 slaying of Patricia Vaughan, who operated the store with her husband.
Green shot the couple and fled with about $9,000.
Green’s execution was scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. but was delayed for about an hour when his attorneys attempted to get a federal judge to step in at the last minute. Once the judge declined, the execution proceeded.
May that rest upon all of our consciences.
Kevin Green is scheduled to be executed tonight, having been convicted and sentenced to death for a 1998 murder of Patricia L. Vaughan. Kevin Green is, by many accounts (though not that of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals), mentally retarded. Details of Green’s retardation here. I am an absolute opponent of the death penalty. While I recognize that absolute opposition isn’t a universally shared view, I would hope that we could all agree that mentally retarded people shouldn’t be murdered in revenge for their crimes. If you do, I hope you’ll contact Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine (right now) and ask him to stop the execution.
Update: Prof. Ruckerman over at Pardon Power has a clear-eyed take on the politics of execution here in Virginia.
(And yes, comments are closed. First time ever, I believe. I don’t delete comments, and I’m not afraid of debate. But I am absolutely uninterested in dealing with the trolls that this topic will attract.)
Last week, some joker made a request for Berlin, even after explicitly acknowledging that I don’t do requests. My petty nature, naturally, made me want to pick this song, which I’m sure makes any real fan of Berlin just ache:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61WPnckcIyE[/youtube]
This, however, gave me my theme for this week. When people in the United States think of the Cold War, I suspect that their view of it was, in no small part, skewed and romanticized by that movie. They experienced the Cold War much like Saint Ronald Reagan experienced World War II – through the movies. They forget the enormous damage it actually did. The human cost involved. The fear. The deaths. How many times we came this fucking close to blowing up the planet.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPV8VAZgXmI[/youtube]
The Cold War had real human consequences across this planet – split nations in half, supported the most brutal of dictators, and left untold numbers dead – but never really touched the United States itself. For that, I am thankful. I just wish that folks here had a better appreciation of that, and how the US ought to be doing its goddamnedest to make sure nothing like that ever happens again. Remembering that it’s Memorial Day isn’t enough.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7CuJ8cR9sg[/youtube]
This one’s been sitting in an unclosed browser tab all week, waiting to get posted:
What they were looking for, Carroll says, was an informant—someone to show up at “vegan potlucks†throughout the Twin Cities and rub shoulders with RNC protestors, schmoozing his way into their inner circles, then reporting back to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, a partnership between multiple federal agencies and state and local law enforcement.
You know, I’m not entirely clear on how vegan correlates with terrorists, but I’m clear on who’s been terrorizing potlucks in Minnesota – those people that bring jello fruit salads (sorry, Grandma).
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Tony Blair has probably been the greatest political disappointment of my life, but I’d still like to ask Israel to please not blow him out of the sky. He’s trying to help, you know.
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I’m off into the mountains this weekend, the sort of place that Sprint just won’t go. So after this and a couple other posts, I’m done until Monday. In case you find yourself with any extra time to poke around, I want to recommend two blogs that I read regularly, and should link more often:
- Chicago Dyke (at Corrente) is very smart and very funny. And I’m not even lying when I say that. Proof of that is right here.
- SuperFrenchie – while the posts themselves are always interesting (well, except for that recent one where he gave oxygen that that monster that should be killed – Eurovision), it’s the commenters’ conversations that follow that I find so compelling. I almost always learn something new and interesting in every thread I spend time in. I don’t think there are too many places you can say that about.
Oh, and just because, I leave you with what could be (but was not) a Eurovision entry. Give her a minute to get going:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYzbzL80UD0[/youtube]
Prompted by many things – Vivian’s question about the size of the Democratic Party tent, and commenter James’ objection to my post about the failure of conservatism included – I’ve been thinking about the intersection of party, ideology, and actual results lately. In the midst of that, I checked out this nifty tool. Put out by The Public Whip, a UK non-profit dedicated to improving the civic process, it tries to help citizens understand whether the party that they’re voting for agrees with them on the issues. While I wasn’t really surprised by the result – I didn’t line up with the part that I’ve historically identified with (and still do) – I was certainly surprised by the distance separating me and that party these days.
This is a bit of a departure from the usual, but I love George Takei. And guess what? He’s getting married. Congrats, George.
South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki has been loathe to use his stature and office to nudge his fellow African leaders into improvements in their own countries. And now he’s paying for it, as his own population starts threatening the refugees from those failing countries:
A wave of violence against foreigners in South Africa has forced 13,000 people to flee their homes, the UN said Tuesday, as President Thabo Mbeki pleaded for an end to a “shameful” show of xenophobia.
South Africa has achieved a measure of practical tolerance and reconciliation that most nations could only dream about. And yet here we are.
Today the California Supreme Court determined that California law may not prevent marriage between two people simply because they are the same sex. From the opinion:
[R]etaining the designation of marriage exclusively for opposite sex couples and providing only a separate and distinct designation for same-sex couples may well have the effect of perpetuating a more general premise – now emphatically rejected by this state – that gay individuals and same-sex couples are in some respects “second-class citizens” who may, under the law, be treated differently from, and less favorably than, heterosexual individuals or opposite-sex couples[.]”
Forward we go.
Update: Lowell, at RaisingKaine, says “Hello, Virginia?” Which can only make me laugh. Virginia’s got a long and well-earned position at the back of the pack when it comes to issues of basic human equality. And Virginia’s Democrats have little to be proud of in this area. The current Democratic governor, Tim Kaine, opposes gay marriage. VA Sen. Creigh Deeds, declared Democratic candidate for governor, opposes gay marriage. Far too many Virginia Democrats (and Virginians in general) mumble something about “folks just aren’t ready yet” and then overlook the naked bigotry of their political leaders. It may be “Forward we go” for the country as a whole, but Virginia will drag its heels the whole way there.
I’ve been thinking a lot about big numbers, lately. The 6,000 that accompanied the first reports of the cyclone in Burma was something I could sort of wrap my head around. I could picture 6,000 people. I could understand that 6,000 – coming from the military government running the place – probably meant that it was a lot more. But I wasn’t sure how many more. It seems to be rising exponentially. The Red Cross’ warning of 128,000 just surpassed my imagination.
And then the earthquake in China hit, and I first heard 10,000. We’re used to big numbers in everything from China, but it was still clearly a massive event. And as that number was rising today, I was trying to fathom it. How did it compare to the events in Burma? What would it be like if it happened here in the US?
Turns out, I was reaching for the wrong end of this. All I needed to do was understand a very small number. In this case, it was just 3. How so? Listen to this short NPR audio report from the ground in Sichuan, in which Melissa Block accompanies two parents looking for their two year old son. Don’t read, don’t look. Just listen.