Notes from around the Human Experience…

GREAT MOMENTS IN THE DEATH PENALTY: The state of Ohio tried to execute Alva Campbell this week.

It failed in that attempt.

Fly In The Ointment: Campbell is 69-years-old, suffers from the ailments a lot of old men suffer from and the state was unable to find a vein to stick needles in so the chemicals that would kill him could do their work.

This wasn’t a bulletin. A pre-execution exam could not locate suitable veins and also discovered Campbell could not breathe while lying down. The state, and we are not making this up, graciously decided to provide a pillow so Campbell could breathe in the moments before it killed him.

Dry, Technical Matter: Campbell’s execution was rescheduled for June 5. Perhaps the state will mandate Campbell work with a personal trainer so his health will improve so they can find a vein. Ideally, Campbell will have the grace to die on his own before we are obliged to go through this again.

Gaylon For Congress…Vote Early, Vote Often: As we said during campaigns for the United States Senate and House of Representatives, the death penalty should be abolished because America has executed innocent people.

Guilt, though, does not appear to be an issue here perhaps because Campbell is so old he’s forgotten whether he’s done it or not. No matter. Ohio is providing other reasons because this is not the first time they’ve had someone strapped to a gurney waiting to die, only to have them returned to death row.

There’s Gotta Be One Here Somewhere: In 2009 Romell Broom spent two hours on the gurney while up to 15 people tried to find a vein. They were so intent on their mission the took a 45-minute break to regroup. Then-Governor Ted Strickland stopped the execution after 18 attempts to find a vein. Now 61, Broom remains on death row.

Judged aside Broom’s standard Campbell got off easy because he was only obliged to tolerate 27-minutes of poking before being returned to death row.

Oh Yeah: Ohio really needs to upgrade the class of person it condemns to death so it will be easier for them to find veins. In 2007 it took so long to find a vein in Christopher Newton they let him use the bathroom before eventually killing him.

Welcome To The Daily Dose Law Review: And you do not have to be Perry Mason to start wondering exactly what should happen after a state is unable to carry out an execution order. Some say you merely keep trying, but  Broom and Campbell were each issued one death sentence, not two or three. Ohio tried to execute their sentences but failed. Broom and Campbell should have their sentences commuted or, better yet, vacated. It’s not their fault the state couldn’t carry their sentences out.

The Bottom Line: Are we the only ones who find this episode as embarrassing as it is absurd? How much vengeance do we need? Would the good folks of Ohio have been any safer had Campbell’s sentence been carried out? Of course not. They should let a sick old man die in peace.

UP, UP AND AWAY: Man leaves Earth untethered for the first time when two Frenchmen, Jean-Francois Pilatre de Rozier and Francois Laurent d’Arlandes make the first untethered hot air balloon flight on this date in 1783.

Originally fearing disaster, French King Louis XVI had decreed that condemned criminals would make the first untethered flight but, sensing history, Pilatre de Rozier and Laurent d’Arlandes talked His Majesty out of it.

Whoops: Pilatre de Rozier would make even more history two years later when he became History’s first in-flight fatality, dying when his balloon crashed while trying to cross the English Channel.

New From Ronco Records: Thomas Edison’s Greatest Hits: One of mankind’s most useful men, Thomas Edison, announced the invention of the phonograph on this date in 1877. While not the first machine to record sound, it was the first that could play that sound back.

“Good Morning. How Do You Do? How Do You Like The Phonograph?”: The phonograph record would remain the dominant audio recording format – even surviving 8-tracks and cassettes – until the emergence of CDs and digital recording formats.

Where Are The Cat Videos?: What would eventually become the Internet goes online when computers at UCLA and a northern California research institute are permanently linked on this date in 1969. By December computers at UC-Santa Barbara and the University of Utah were connected.

LOL: Earlier attempts at networking had been temporary with – and this will surprise you – the networks sometimes crashing.

Quotebook: Who can ask more of a man/Than giving all within his span/Giving all, it seems to me/Is not so far from victory – George Moriarty,  The Road Ahead of the Road Behind

Answer To The Last Trivia Question: Apollo 12 landed about 885 miles from Apollo 11.  

Today’s Stumper: Which amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment?- Answer next time!

Share Gaylon! Go!

Notes from around the Human Experience…

HUT, HUT HIKE: From time to time in this space we have wondered if the NFL is going to be around in a generation or two. This is because fewer people are watching their games on television and fewer kids are playing it at the youth and high school level and it is not unreasonable to conclude that eventually there will be nobody watching or playing professional football.

Now there is even infighting inside the league between Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones – a recent Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrinee and one the league’s most powerful owners – NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and the rest of the league’s owners. Jones recently ran a lawsuit against the league up the flagpole over an extension to Commissioner Roger Goodell’s contract, a move that was met with the scorn it deserved. Other NFL owners are peeved enough so that talk about punishing Jones for this is being discussed.

Dry, Technical Matter: Recently every NFL owner, including Jones, approved Goodell’s extension and referred the matter to a committee to finalize the details. Jones is now fighting this because he is peeved Goodell suspended his star running back Ezekiel Elliot for six games for violating their personal conduct policy, even though Elliot was not charged with a crime. After the obligatory farting around in court, Elliot has begun serving his suspension. 

This is all rather riveting, and if they are squabbling like this in public, you can imagine the fun going on behind closed doors.

The Bottom Line: Years from now we may well look back at this time and realize we were watching the start of the NFL imploding on itself. Now, the league ain’t going anywhere anytime soon, of course, but it is certainly possible TV ratings will continue to slide. It is definite participation numbers will continue to fall. And once the cancer of infighting infiltrates an organization it is tough to get rid of. We may very well be witnessing the beginning of the end of the NFL.

“Four Score And Seven Years Ago…”: President Abraham Lincoln delivers one of History’s most momentous speeches on this date in 1863.

“…Dedicated To The Proposition That All Men Are Created Equal”: Lincoln was speaking at the dedication of a cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, about four months after a Union victory at the Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War. Gettysburg was the deadliest battle of the Civil War and was the last Confederate invasion of the North.

“The World Will Little Note, Nor Long Remember What We Say Here…”: Lincoln entered the history books with a speech that took slightly more than two minutes. This followed a two-hour chat – about normal for that time, actually – by former Secretary of State Edward Everett that nobody remembers anything about. We actually read Everett’s speech for this feature a few years ago and we recall it not being completely uninteresting, though two hours is a long time to listen to one person yap.

Fly In The Ointment: Five handwritten copies of the Gettysburg address are known to exist. All are slightly different and all differ from newspaper accounts of the day.

3…2…1…Touchdown: Man reaches the moon for the second time when Apollo 12 landed on the moon on this date in 1969. Apollo 12 was commanded by Pete Conrad and Alan Bean was the lunar module pilot while Command Module Pilot Richard Gordon remained in lunar orbit.  

Whoops, My Bad: The Apollo 12 crew had brought the first color TV camera with them, but the first lunar color TV broadcast was canceled when Bean inadvertently pointed the camera directly at Mr Sun during setup, ruining a tube inside.

USA! USA! The crew also visited nearby Surveyor 3, which had landed in April 1967 and brought back portions of it. Surveyor 3 remains the only probe visited by humans on another world.

“I  Did Not…Well, Yes I  Did”: The Judiciary Committee of the US House of Representatives begins impeachment hearings against President Bill Clinton on this date in 1998. Clinton would be impeached by the entire House on December 18, thought Senate would acquit Clinton of single charges of perjury and obstruction of justice the following February.

FunFact: Clinton joined Richard Nixon and Andrew Johnson as presidents the House had considered impeachment charges against. Johnson was impeached and acquitted by the Senate in 1868 and Nixon resigned the presidency before the House could consider impeachment resolutions.

Quotebook: …and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth – Abraham Lincoln

Answer To The Last Trivia Question: James Hinds was the first US Congressman to be assassinated while in office, shot to death in 1868. Despite the fact he identified the shooter before he died, the suspect was never arrested, much less prosecuted.

Today’s Stumper: How far away from Apollo 11’s landing site did Apollo 12 land?- Answer next time!

Share Gaylon! Go!

Notes from around the Human Experience…

THE WEEK IN TRUMP: When President Trump – President Trump! – took office our only real hope for substantive governing was the hope a GOP president with a long career in business would have the good sense to muster up a substantive overhaul of our tax code. And a tax bill is worming its way through Congress with the House having already passed its version and the Senate considering one. They hammering these out on their own because the White House is providing some zero guidance on the matter.

To Review: Candidate Donald Trump, of course, really should have had a tax plan when he entered the race in August 2015, but he didn’t because Trump has never had a long-term vision for what he wants to accomplish as president. From the get-go all he has done is display his only real talent, drawing attention to himself.

Back On Message: There are some things to consider before passing judgment on the GOP tax plan.

Leading Off: One, will it simplify our tax code? Currently, the American tax code has over nine million words and is so confusing the IRS gives out incorrect information one-quarter of the time.

Batting Second: Two, will it stop the government from taking more of our money than it deserves?

Fly In The Ointment: The answer on both counts is no. Both the version passed by the House and being considered by the Senate have several tax layers, plus changes to what is and what is not deductible and other dickhandling designed to make it look like they are doing something substantive. They’re not. Our tax code will still be beyond comprehension to the average American and to one-quarter of IRS agents. 

On the second count, the government is still taking more of our money than they deserve. Depending on the version and income level, a lot of Americans will still be paying between 25 and 40 percent of their income in taxes.  

Dry, Technical Matter: Both versions lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent.

FunFact: Regardless of which version passes, complying with our tax obligations will still cost American citizens and businesses over $400 billion every year.

Gaylon For Congress…Vote Early, Vote Often: We said this till we turned blue on the campaign trail for the United States Senate (2104) and House of Representatives (2016):

The American economy will not flourish until it is anchored in low taxes and free markets.

Some Philosophy Crap: Ideally, we would be allowed to keep all the money we earn, but we are so fiscally adrift that is not practical right now. We favor a flat tax, ideally, five percent but no more than ten percent, on individuals and the corporate tax should be eliminated because that is nothing more than an expense they pass on to us consumers. The philosophy of soaking the rich will not produce dividends because either the rich will stop earning money or, eventually, they will have nothing left to tax.

The Bottom Line: Neither GOP plan provides anything remotely resembling low taxes. As it has since they took power in January, the GOP is proving itself utterly unable to govern.

ON THIS DATE! ON THIS DATE!: The Hay-Bunau Varilla Treaty between the United States and Panama is signed on this date in 1903. The Treaty gave the United States control of a portion of Panama to build and maintain what would become the Panama Canal. The Panama Canal Zone returned to Panamanian control in 1999.

More Dry, Technical Matter: The Hay in question was US Secretary of State John Hay. Hay began his career as a private secretary to Abraham Lincoln and from the time of Theodore Roosevelt’s ascension to the presidency after the death of William McKinley until Charles Fairbanks was inaugurated vice president in 1905, Hay was next in line for the presidency.

Please Pass The Dry, Technical Matter: The Bunau-Varilla in question was Phillipe-Jean Bunau-Varilla, who was actually French, about as Panamanian as a cheeseburger. He had been involved in the original, 19th-century French attempt to build a canal and had been instrumental in the signing of a treaty where Colombia ceded land to the US to build the canal, a treaty the Colombian Senate rejected. So, working out of New York, Bunau-Varilla became instrumental in getting Panama to secede from Colombia, a dream most future Panamanians didn’t even know they had. Despite the fact he had not been in Panama for 17 years he was made the new country’s first US Ambassador.

So That’s Where The Term Originated: Jim Jones, leader of the People’s Temple cult, initiates the mass murder/suicide that resulted in the deaths of 918 people in Guyana on this date in 1978. Most of the deaths came from drinking cyanide-laced Kool-Aid.

Among those killed was US Congressman Leo Ryan of California. Ryan was in Jonestown investigating the cult and was assassinated a few hours before the mass murder.

Oh Yeah: It was the single largest deliberate act resulting in dead Americans until 9/11. The compound has long been deserted.

Quotebook: Only when you have been in the depths can you truly appreciate the heights. – Richard Nixon

Answer To The Last Trivia Question: There was not a national governing document of the United States prior to the Articles of Confederation.

Today’s Stumper: Leo Ryan was the second US Congressman to be assassinated while in office. Who was the first? – Answer next time!

Share Gaylon! Go!