Author: MAÔ

Wandering around, exploring the Divine, figuring life out. No guarantees, no promises. Just day by day, an inner and outer journey.

Rebuilding

by MAÔ, posted in Government

Following natural disasters, how does the government respond? Where does the money come from, and aren’t there ways that we can be better prepared?

Early estimates are that the total cost of Harvey and Irma are $150-$250B. In perspective, the cost of Katrina was $160B. How do we pay for that? What are other economic factors that need to be considered?

The United States annual budget is roughly $3.8 trillion. So, those two hurricanes comprise approximately 5% of the annual budget.

When I worked in municipal government, I dealt with the Office of Management and Budget from time to time. Check how much overall was left for the office until the end of the fiscal year. Request transfers from one category to another. Those kind of things.

I’m neither an expert on budgets nor on government expenditures.

That being said, it seems that the Nation has a problem. Debt is required to make up the deficit in the budget (already), and more debt will be needed to pay for the damage.

Following Hurricane Katrina, John W. Schoen had this to say when asked who’d foot the bill: “The simplest answer: our children and grandchildren will get stuck with the bill. They’re the ones who will ultimately have to pay off the debt Congress has authorized to keep spending on the war in Iraq and now the rebuilding of damage caused by back-to-back hurricanes. In the short-term, the cash is coming from the sale of Treasury bonds, which will have to be paid back decades from now.”

I’d say great, but I’ll probably be alive to see my taxes increase for that. Probably won’t have Social Security benefits either.

Regardless, the question of handling national disasters comes down to the matter of handling the National Budget. And given that the Country was created partially through the borrowing of money (to finance the Revolutionary War), we have always been a people of debt.

The American Dream was founded on debt.

Is it sustainable? Probably not. Are we going to suddenly have to become a Chinese State? Highly doubtful. Still, planning for the budget deficit in responsible ways has become even more important in recent years.

The Treasury Department was cerated to handle the Country’s finances (thank you Alexander Hamilton – I’m a theatre guy, please keep that in mind).

From a website showing US Government Spending, we get these charts:

usgs_chart4p01

“When charted in dollars the total accumulation of federal debt looks huge. Looking back over the last century, the debt back in 1900 doesn’t really register.”

usgs_chart4p02

“But by charting accumulated debt as a percent of gross domestic product (GDP), you get a look at government debt compared to the size of the economy at the time.” This looks like a more reasonable time comparison, though having debt at 100% of the GDP is certainly not a desirable method of running the Nation’s finances.

So where does that leave us? Raise taxes? Cut spending? That’s the crux of the Democrat-Republican debate!

But in the short term it unfortunately doesn’t matter which side is right, if either side can actually be right. The cost of repair when destruction hits needs to be paid.

 

Eye of the storm

by MAÔ, posted in Florida

In the eye of a hurricane there is quiet for just a moment, a yellow sky. 

– Hurricane, from Hamilton the Musical

When it’s time to prepare for a possible hurricane strike, it’s inevitably nearly too late. Irma was not much of a factor on the East coast of Florida, and honestly, I never thought she would be, though I couldn’t tell you why. I had hoped she would turn out to sea, rather than swipe the Gulf Coast, but here on the Atlantic side of Central Florida it was mostly rain and light winds. And, as with all natural disasters, concern and rushing about.

Hurricanes give us the feeling that humanity is no closer to mastering nature than early man was, coming out of the caves. The raw destructive power of storm systems can undo decades of civil engineering and community building. Flooding, wind damage, downed power lines and exploding transformers. And nature will keep coming.

As I sit in relative darkness, writing by some candlelight on an iPad with attached keypad, I wonder at early civilizations. Save the sound of nearby gas-fueld generators, this powerless state is something that would be typical merely a century ago. Quiet. Alone with thoughts, the sounds of nature (sans fuel-combustion), and seemingly few concerns. 

The television is off. It must be, with no power. I listened to some public radio via the phone, but not much. And I sit here, thinking. Considering what tomorrow will bring, when the power is sure to be reinstated. 

Just play

by MAÔ, posted in Writing

Why have I taken to writing every month that first post about the books I bought and the books I read? It’s a blatant copying of the format Nick Hornby created for his column in The Believer, and I can’t imagine that I could do it better than him. Yet, I still write the post.

the simple fact is, I do it because I’m searching for my voice. It’s a voice that gets stuck inside me. And when it finally comes out as I hear it, I’ll be doing (what I hope will be) wholly original work. Until then, I play. I experiment.

Neil Gaiman has talked extensively on writing, both about his process and on the craft as a whole. One piece of advice that I find particularly pertinent to this post is a response to a Tumblr question: “…try things out. Enjoy yourself. If you find a writer you like, write like them. And then sound like something else. Write anything. Don’t worry about it being good or read by other people. Just play, and play a lot.”

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

-Ira Glass

Legislative Agenda

by MAÔ, posted in Government

From my point of view, it seems that president Donald J. Trump came into office with one incredibly focused agenda – overturn as much Obama-era policy that he could.

Counterpoint. I’ll admit that Trump was elected president, and during the campaign he ran on the platform of draining the swamp, not being a political toadie, and appealing to a broad swath of the Republican base. Not all the GOP, very few democrats, and about half the independents. Much of his campaign was to be critical of the previous administration.

Counterpoint. I do not claim to have seen a copy of president Trump’s agenda at any point in the campaign, or since he was elected. This is merely speculative, though I feel the evidence does in part support that possibility. So, I pulled up some legislative accomplishments of the Obama Administration, and picked out a few that have been of interest to President Trump since inauguration.

Let’s start with Health Care. A major campaign promise of then candidate Donald Trump was the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act. And boy, did he try. Every tactic he could think of, from coercion to Twitter rants. Even now Obamacare is a program with a tenuous hold.

More recently DACA, the Deferred Action to Childhood Arrivals. This policy, enacted during the Obama Administration, gives consideration to the 800,000 children brought here illegally, through no fault of their own, by immigrating parents. It gives them the opportunity to receive an education and legally apply for work permits in renewable windows. President Trump said the policy didn’t work, and it’s up to Congress to resolve what happens to those “Dreamers.”

Transgender in the military – According to CNN, “President Donald Trump on Friday directed the military not to move forward with an Obama-era plan that would have allowed transgender individuals to be recruited into the armed forces, following through on his intentions announced a month earlier to ban transgender people from serving.”

Dodd-Frank was another policy Trump took aim at, and there have been steps moving towards its repeal from the Administration and the GOP controlled Congress.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan seemed to be coming to a close during the Obama Administration. Now, it seems that troop increases and prolonged occupation will be our nation’s future. Also, here.

These are just a few, with many more not listed, as well as new proposals coming on what seem a weekly basis. When the current Administration runs out of Obama-era policies to try and overturn or reverse, I suppose we’ll see which direction President Trump wants to take. 

Opening Night

by MAÔ, posted in Theatre

Here it is, another opening night. I’ve been on stage in over fifty productions in the past twelve years. It’s probably over seventy-five now, but I can’t keep track. It had been one of the driving forces of my life.

This show has welcomed me back to theatre, and I appreciate it. Yet it still feels very different from before. Less joyful. Less exciting. That, sadly, has more to do with me than the show.

There are wonderful moments: the camaraderie between the fellow cast, being up on stage in front of people, singing and (pretending to be) dancing.

For a time, performing was a very social thing for me. As I got better at it, realized that I had talent and natural instincts as a performer, I started to take it more seriously. I worked professionally around Central Florida for some time. Things started going south, I guess, when I got sick.

The illness was eventually diagnosed as RA, and I continue to struggle with joint paint, fatigue, and stiffness.

I started this post to just mention that I was happy to be doing a show again. But what I’ve realized is that I have baggage tied up in performing. Baggage I’m going to have to sort it, if I plan to continue doing this.

In the heat of August nights

by MAÔ, posted in Books

August 2017

Books Bought:

  • Meddling Kids – Edgar Cantero
  • The Yamas & Niyamas: Exploring Yoga’s Ethical Practice – Deborah Adele
  • Hamlet – William Shakespeare
  • Schubert’s Winter Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession – Ian Bostridge
  • On Writing – Stephen King
  • The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories – H.P. Lovecraft
  • The Icarus Deception – Seth Godin
  • The Once and Future King – T.H. White
  • Invisible Acts of Power: Channeling Grace in Your Every Day Life – Caroline Myss 

Books Read:

  • Welcome to Night Vale – Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor (unfinished)
  • Awake in the World – Michael Stone (unfinished)
  • Religion for Atheists – Alain de Botton (unfinished)
  • Tibet: Opposing Viewpoints – Greenhaven Press (unfinished)
  • It – Stephen King (unfinished)
  • Full Wolf Moon – Lincoln Child
  • The Icarus Deception – Seth Godin
  • Tribes – Seth Godin
  • A Field Guide to Lies: Critical Thinking in the Information Age – Daniel J. Levitin
  • Churchill & Orwell: The Fight for Freedom – Thomas E. Ricks (unfinished)
  • The House of the Worm – Mearle Prout (Short story)
  • Manuscript Found in a Milkbottle – Neil Gaiman (Short story)
  • Blood Monster – Neil Gaiman (Even shorter comic)
  • Invisible Acts of Power: Channeling Grace in Your Every Day Life – Caroline Myss (unfinished)
  • Ten Years in the Tub – Nick Hornby (Aug ’04 – Oct ’04)

The month came and went much as anticipated. Work has ramped up, days at different locations across Central Florida, nights at rehearsal, and plans, as they most frequently do, change at the drop of a hat. Several of those plans were unfinished books. 

First of all, Welcome to Night Vale I had been meaning to read for some time. I had learned of the podcast (not listened to it yet either) and then the book, possibly through a spot on NPR. I thought I’d knock the novel out pretty quickly. Well, best laid plans and all that. I could not find a groove to read it in. It’s witty, it’s playful, and it borders on the absurd (all things I immensely enjoy in my reading), and yet I struggled to get through the first hundred and fifty pages, at which point I decided I would put the book down. That’s not quite halfway.

If you make it halfway through a book, you might as well keep reading it. Prior to the half, you should have some options at giving it up. Film critic Mike D’Angelo wrote about watching the first 10 minutes of a movie in much the same way I’m describing the principle of setting down the book before getting to the midpoint. “Basically, I give the movie 10 minutes to grab my attention. Most of them [non-reviewed or poorly-reviewed films] fail, and get turned off at that point. If I’m still interested, though, I’ll watch for another 10 minutes. There are two more potential bail-out points at 0:30 and 0:40; if I still want to keep going after 40 minutes, I commit to watching the entire film, even if it turns awful later” (My italics added).

Obviously ten minutes with a book is not enough time to give you the full breadth of what you’re sitting down with. But you can probably get a feel for whether you’re going to like it or not. Anyway, Night Vale just didn’t grab me in the way I wanted to be grabbed. It could be an off month for reading, though, and I do accept fault for some great books that I just can’t get through. (I’m looking at you, A Hundred Years of Solitude; Great Expectations; and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.)

In an odd twist of fate, I got a bookstore email advertising the new Night Vale novel, It Devours!. And the guilt just keeps piling on.

Awake in the World, Religion for Atheists, and Invisible Acts maintain a pretty consistent theme. Spirituality, theology and philosophy keep me interested, and I do tend to gravitate towards those nonfiction titles, when I’m not in the mood for escapist fiction. All remain unfinished, as my intention was more ambitious than I was capable of achieving. Alain de Botton’s book is something I learned about while listening to On Being, oh, some months ago. I was fascinated in listening to his interview, and planned to get the book. The concept of what atheism lacks in terms of how the non believers interact is the fundamental point of the study, and I got through a swath of community before finally understanding that it wasn’t to be finished this month.

Now I’m neither overtly religious, nor am I an atheist. One of the problems I have with religions is typically a group-think mentality, where heretical views are shunned out of hand. Atheism, conversely, I feel leaves little sense of wonder to the Universe, so vast and amazing that try as we might for generations to come, we’ll only scratch the surface of understanding it. So, I fit somewhere along the interior of the scale.

Ms. Myss’s book was assigned for the book club at yoga studio I practice at. In addition to not reading the bulk of the book (and at just a couple of hundred pages, I really am only making excuses), I was not able to attend book club, and let them know in person that I had barely cracked it open.

Awake in the World is a book of excerpts from talks given by the author, Buddhist and yogi Michael Stone. It’s a continuation of my exploration of the yogic arts, meditation, mindfulness, relaxation, spirituality and the like. This was a nice, quick read, and I enjoyed the tone of this book for much. Some takeaways include the paradox of entering life fully while still existing in the realm of language and thought, the practice of yoga as it applies to living (not just practicing forms, and the inherent duality in the commonality of the Universe. Boom! (That is the sound of my mind being blown. Feel free to imagine doing the outstretched hands beside my head as well).

I purchased Yamas & Niyamas to read at a later time, or to study over the course of my yoga practice.

Both of Godin’s books also touched on faith or religion in one form or another. I had remembered reading The Icarus Deception a few years ago. As a matter of fact, it was one book I commonly cited as inspirational to my planning back then, before the “incident.” (The incident, which at some point I’m sure I will be comfortable enough to describe in detail in a post, or several, was round about a year and a half ago. I’m still seeing the effects of that incident, and the choices I made following. It’s one of the reasons I dedicated myself to keeping this blog.)

Going back to Godin, Icarus is a book I would suggest to everyone, but especially those who are artists, or creatives; those who feel stuck at work, or capable of doing great things yet don’t know where to start; and those who are searching for their purpose. I sat there with about twenty new projects popping to my head, and I just wish I had the time and resources to go after them all right now. Tribes I had also read before, but didn’t remember it until I was a few chapters in. For me, not as resonant as Icarus, and yet still bursting with anecdotes and suggestions for being a leader.

Two other nonfiction books were Churchill & Orwell, and Field Guide to Lies. I finished the latter but not the former, though I enjoyed both in what I did read. I really only got through pre-WWII information in Ricks’s book. The two men lived extraordinary lives, and I was particularly taken by the section on Churchill’s love life, such as it was.

In Lies, it’s a lot of information. Basically, unless you know the source of statistical data, you should probably be dubious of what you’re told anecdotally or by the media.

Additionally, I’ve had a feeling of Halloween nearly this entire month. Part of that is owing to It, which I decided to read prior to the film coming out. At over a thousand pages in its paperback version, I had my work cut out for me. I made it halfway this month, and intend to finish it off for next month.

Full Wolf Moon was an odd little read, but I enjoyed the suspenseful nature of it. I’ve had a love affair with lycanthropy since I was a young boy. (I believe all young boys like werewolves, or like to be scared of werewolves. That’s normal, right?) Yet, and not to give away much, the villain wasn’t quite what I anticipated, and the supernatural elements left me equally unfulfilled. It seemed to me to be a right-brainer’s werewolf book.

Feeling in the spirit of a pagan holiday nearly two months away, I picked up copies of Call of Cthulu and Meddling Kids. Hell, even Hamlet has a ghost! I picked up this copy because it was an Arden printing, and on sale.

Let me mention Edgar Cantero, who I discovered several years ago with The Supernatural Enhancements. I enjoyed the book, loved the premise, the style, and the writing. I had been out from work for a week with a flare-up of arthritis, and started reading it. I finished it within a day or two. When I learned that he had a new work coming out, this one a loose take on Scooby-Doo, well, yeah, I had to get that. Hoping to read it over the next few weeks, as I’m giving It my full-ish attention.

Winter Journey and On Writing (King again) are books that I’ll read over the coming months, interspersed within my other endeavors. For those of you unfamiliar with Schubert’s Winterreise, and if you like male operatic singing, give it a listen. It’s lonely, sad, and evokes the seasonal isolation of snowy winter. Nothing like sunny Florida.

Then there’s Once and Future King, a lovely edition in yellow that is added to my book shelf more for aesthetic than reading. Somewhere I have a beat-up paperback of the book, along with a similarly ragged copy of The Book of Merlyn.

In spare time (hah!) I was able to knock out a couple short stories. Neil Gaiman remains generally my favorite author, and I had purchased his Humble Bundle a few years back as well, and still had some unread works in there. Honestly, I haven’t finished View from the Cheap Seats or even started Norse Mythology. So, that’s in my pile of books waiting for me to show them love and affection.

I found a journal entry, maybe from early last year, where I wrote, “…why I buy books. I seem to buy them to avoid reading what I have.” Then I come across this little gem in Ten Years in the Tub: “[So Many Books author Gabriel] Zaid’s finest moment, however, comes in his second paragraph, when he says that ‘the truly cultured are capable of owning thousands of unread books without losing their composure or their desire for more.'”

As I think about my growing library, and how long I’ll continue collecting thoughts about what I’ve read, I look forward to knowing that I could spend a small fortune on books. Or, maybe I’m just resigned to the fact. Time to get another bookshelf.

Fighting for something

by MAÔ, posted in Government

“On this Sabbath… in our homes in the midst of our American families, let us calmly consider what we have done and what we must do.”

– President Franklin D. Roosevelt

This introduction to a 1940 fireside chat was the result of troubling times in Europe, and the realization that Roosevelt had come to – that the United States would not be able to avoid that conflict. The fascist regimes in Italy, Germany, and Japan (the Axis powers) were fast becoming a threat to a Country trying to turn a blind-eye to the plight of non-Americans. The isolationists were content in believing that something in Europe was okay as long as it wasn’t happening to them.

Beyond the expansion, genocide and looming threat of the Axis were the fascists. “Fascism is a form of radical authoritarian nationalism, characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and control of industry and commerce, that came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe”.

Wilhelm Reich argued that fascism “does not spring exclusively either from the economic factors, or from the activities of political leaders. Much rather, it is the collective expression of average human beings, whose primary biological needs have been ruthlessly crushed by an authoritarian and sexually inhibited society. Any form of organized mysticism, such as the authoritarian family or church, feeds on the longings of the masses, and we must be forced to realize its potential destructiveness.”

Collective expression of average human beings. I think that we sometimes forget that all great things, all terrible things, anything of note that has occurred in recorded history, started with people – average human beings. Tragedy occurs, and its typically the loss of human life. Dictators rise, but before that, they were merely a cog in the system. Mussolini was a rifleman; Hitler was an Austrian draft dodger.

The anti-fascist movement, ANTIFA, has been receiving a great deal of attention. Fears over the Trump Administration, concerns of racism and, yes, fascism, have prompted the growth of these loosely organized groups. No leadership, no core mission, no real understanding of purpose that’s consistent throughout. It’s a response to what is felt to be wrong. A feeling that we’re all just average human beings, and how some of us are being treated is intolerable.

Nazism. White supremacy. Fascism.

So what to do? Is taking to the street, wearing all black and balaclava masks, carrying signs and weapons the answer? When the frustration boils over, violence is always possible. And the events in Charlottesville, VA, Berkeley, CA, and others show that clashes between ANTIFA groups and Alt-Right or white nationalist demonstrators are inevitable, and likely to be dangerous, perhaps even deadly.

Now I support freedom of expression, and I oppose white supremacy and white nationalist movements. To be frank, the climate in the US right now seems frighteningly like what I imagined the periods of the Civil Rights movement and the era prior to World War II to look like – nationalist sentiments, ethnic slurs, and turmoil.

Is there another way? During the Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. trumpeted nonviolent resistance. “While others were advocating for freedom by “any means necessary,” including violence, Martin Luther King, Jr. used the power of words and acts of nonviolent resistance, such as protests, grassroots organizing, and civil disobedience to achieve seemingly impossible goals.”

I would advocate nonviolence as well. To refrain from resorting to “any means necessary,” it is important to remember that it is not antagonism that solves disputes, but in the opposition of error. Dr. King took many of his ideas from Mahatma Gandhi, who had led the Indian independence movement against British rule. It was accomplished through nonviolent resistance, which Gandhi felt was “infinitely superior to violence.” (47)

Gandhi wrote, “On the political field, the struggle on behalf of the people mostly consists in  opposing error in the shape of unjust laws. When you have failed to bring the error home to the law-giver by way of petitions and the like, the only remedy open to you, if you do not wish to submit to error, is to compel him by physical force to yield to you or by suffering in your own person by inviting the penalty for the breach of the law. Hence satyagraha largely appears to the public as Civil Disobedience or Civil Resistance. It is civil in the sense that it is not criminal.”

Ultimately, tolerance is needed for this Country to survive. Tolerance of immigrants, and ethnicities, and even political parties. Otherwise it’s just a disparate powder keg waiting to explode.

Hate groups, by their very definition, embody a lack of tolerance, and should be responded to accordingly. Nazis, and Neo-Nazis, are pretty clearly a hate group.

I would rather a group like ANTIFA to not be assailable in their actions – to not have members that may be classified as domestic terrorists. I want an organization, or a group of organizations, that promotes tolerance, that finds creative ways of fighting against inequality.

The violence is a symptom, revealing underlying fears and angers. I get it. I’m just as frustrated. And we can’t look to our politicians, because right now it seems that too few of them are there to help. But aren’t there some other ways of promoting tolerance? It feels as if the heart of the Country is broken, and that there are too few stepping up to help it heal.

A Golden Apple

by MAÔ, posted in Poetry

I’ve reached it, as high as I could,
A Golden Apple, far in the branches.
(They will get that wrong.
No matter. In my mouth
The meat is the same. Juices.)
A juice. Sweeter than any in the Garden.
I open my eyes, closed involuntarily.
Ecstasy in that taste.
Not realizing, I chew my lower lip,
Longing for more.

The air is crisp and I nearly shiver,
Water molecules licking my skin.
Another bite.

My tongue rolls over my lip, 
Capturing some escaping nectar.
Laughing, hugging myself, I spin where I stand.
My heart races and an unusual feeling
Rises in my stomach. A flutter.
I shudder,
Knowing my need.

My husband lies in the grass.
He is naked.
My stomach flutters again, and it is good.
I offer him my apple.
He takes it. He eats it.
I do not have to offer him
     What else I have.
     He takes it.
It is good.

The Natural Imperative

by MAÔ, posted in philosophy

How are we programmed to act?

If one had never seen a murder, heard of a murder, knew of the concept of murder – could that person then commit a murder?

If we were to follow our true spiritual instincts, the yearnings we have, where would it lead us?

Some would inevitably be killers. Some would be abusive. But, I wonder, is it a natural imperative, or a product of upbringing? Nature vs. nurture.

What if, for instance, everyone made the effort to treat children, all children, like their own? All children, regardless of race, creed, nationality, sexuality, intelligence, emotional deficiencies, behavioral problems, disabilities. Imagine what that would do for the children, and likewise what it would do to all who interacted with those children.

Wouldn’t children grow up to respect the older generations? Wouldn’t older generations respect a little more?

Yet it doesn’t shine a light on what the natural imperative is. What’s engrained in our biology, and what’s programmed into us through teaching and upbringing.

What is our natural system, in the absence of power struggles and fear?

It’s something I’ve been thinking about, and will continue to think about.

Alas, Poor Yorick

by MAÔ, posted in Government

It’s an interesting cross roads, along one path – civilization; and the other – barbaric punishment.

I’d mentioned in the earlier post, “It’s the W-Word!!!“, a statement made by Gandhi: “A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.”

There are similar quotes, by similarly great men and women, on similar topics. Another that stokes the flames is from Dostoyevsky: “The degree of civil action in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.”

I’ve seen the criminal justice system. I believe the criminal justice system in the United States does not work. There are statistics. There are first-hand accounts. There are horror stories.

Privatization, capitalism, dehumanization drive a criminal justice system that is unsustainable. The criminal justice bubble, if you will. A bubble that is sure a break.

And I’ve mentioned the issues I’ve had with the criminal justice system before in passing. But right now I’m thinking about the death penalty. This was prompted by the scheduled Tuesday execution of Missouri inmate Marcellus Williams. Newly discovered DNA evidence prompted the Governor to stay the execution. (As I’m working on the finishing touches of this piece, I just got a notice for an execution in my home state of Florida.)

It’s an aspect of our belief that the threat of death will keep citizens in line. That punishment for crimes is the most obvious deterrent. If you can create a punishment harsh enough, eventually it will inevitably prevent all crime. Yet that doesn’t seem logical.

Anyway you slice it, here the numbers are skewed.

A recent study by Professor Michael Radelet and Tracy Lacock of the University of Colorado found that 88% of the nation’s leading criminologists do not believe the death penalty is an effective deterrent to crime.”

Personally, I am an ardent detractor of the death penalty. From a moral standpoint, the taking of someone’s life is something that I will not support. (In a kind of extremist view, I admit I did go vegetarian last year.)

Coming at this from a religious standpoint, I think of the various conservative Christians who will decry abortion, yet at the same time demand retributive justice. This post from Christian Today, 2002, gives you a glimpse:

“Many evangelical christians believe that when it comes to wrongdoers (or criminals), the state’s first task is to make them suffer for the wrong they have done. Whether the lash, or exile from one’s homeland, or a stretch on the rack, or exposure to public shame (The Scarlet Letter), or confinement in jail—or even the noose—punishment is expected.

Is there a Christian principle from which retributive justice is derived? Retributive justice did not arise from any Christian principle; almost every pre-Christian society dealt with wrongdoers by causing them pain. Even so, retributive justice is supported by biblical example.”

A commonly cited verse for retributive punishment is Exodus 21:23:

“But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.”

And yet, I’ve heard it taught that even this was to encourage leniency in punishment. Prior to the Torah, death would be a common punishment for many crimes. Then Jesus came along, and theoretically upended the whole system. “Love thy enemy”, “turn the other cheek”, et al.

It’s believed now that most religious systems argue for grace and mercy when meting out punishments. Yet, Christians in America have been at the forefront of hateful behaviors. Radical Islamists vie for power and incite fear through terrorist acts. And some Hasidic Jews are still accused of misogynistic treatment of their wives, moving into the realm of domestic abuse.

We don’t seem to have it down yet.

Currently thirty-two states have the death penalty. There are right now over thirteen-hundred people on death row in the US. And from this fact sheet, it seems that roughly 61% of the polled Americans would be favorable to alternatives to the penalty. It’s my hope that eventually we’ll move from this form of retributive justice, in favor of more humane treatment of our citizenry.