Well, I'm back in (Merry Olde) England.

Whilst in the USA I read a 'factual book' from a school library talking about how the Fairy Queen made the (Merry) blonde haired, blue eyed Knight of the Red Cross, St George of Merry England. If these are books that are passed off as history, I can see why Mel Gibson's
historical re-writes are so popular. Firstly, I am pretty sure
George, who I doubt was Aryan, has ever visited this Sceptred
Isle, let alone slew any of our pesky dragons. Secondary, since
when has the Queen of the Fairies been about to canonise anybody?
Thirdy, most people weren't exactly that merry. Admittedly, most of the
history of any of the other American peoples from that time
has been wiped out along with most of the culture - be it Native
American or African - so they must feel less guilty about
re-writing ours.

I played a game of Taboo and one person was trying to describe
Big Ben as the clock tower in my home town. The clock tower in my
home town is an Asda. Though, yes, I have seen the Queen; she
visited my town when I was two. I have it on cine film and no Mel
Gibson in sight.

Anyway, I'm typing away late at night and in 10 hours a guy is
due to be executed. I've said above how Americans don't understand
some aspects of England' and I don't understand some of America.

I don't understand how Americans can go though the act of calling
the people who run their jails The Department of Correction.

I have always believed that prison is about rehabilitating as well
as punishing the criminal. I am sure that somebody once thought that somewhere in America.

There is no disguising the fact that, as the founder of a street gang, he has been responsible for many deaths. I don't feel that I have
enough knowledge of his crimes to comment on if he is guilty or not of his crimes, though a jury of his peers convicted him. However, we can start with the jury. To serve on a jury in a capital crime one has to believe in the death penalty. How can this alone get a fair trail, let alone a fair sentence?

I have never understood the death penalty. I watched on the news
how conflicts across the globe have escalated from people demanding revenge.

I have seen how victims are crying for their children while calling for another mother's child to be killed for justice to be served. The family of a murdered man are hoping that having blood on their hands will ease their loss. That having a man have a quick, painless death instead of making him sit for perhaps eighty years staring at the same four walls thinking over his crimes, and maybe feeling remorse for what he did, is best. Unless you are totally naive, nobody could come up with that same old chant of 'it's a deterrent'. The US has a death penalty, most of Europe and Canada doesn't. I don't even need to call on the figures to compare the murder rates. The death penalty is not a deterrent. If I was a gang member, had time to think, knew that I was in trouble and could go deeper in or get out and I saw that a man who was in it up to his neck, on death row, calling for peace, telling your world how gang violence was wrong, to stop fighting, the great and the good rallying round him, but I then saw 'the man' kill him anyway, then why should I repent?

Why should I think this society cares about my reform?

Why should I care about his society?

To this man and many like him, the American society doesn't care about them - that is why they are in gangs which provide them with their own community, a family and some hope in a world that doesn't care. However, if the white rich folks, the lawyers, judges and politicians want to step foot into gang land and try and clean it up, try and educate and present a future that doesn't rely on the gun, it is going to take much more time and more tax dollars than wiping out one more life. However, will it take the money that they are spending every day on housing all the gang bangers, all the medical costs, all the repair costs, the policing costs, the legal costs?

So here we are. The Department of Correction are about to execute
a man who has tried more than most to become rehabilitated. How can this call itself correction if there is no leeway for a person's change in outlook?

How can a country march around being the world's moral police force when its own justice system is packaged in hypocrisy and flouts human rights?

Till next time

Love peace and blues

tjm

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