What is love?

For the majority of my life, I have had the brain power, physical prowess and charisma to do great things but I have also found myself in most cases being the outsider looking in.

I've had many friends come and go and many good friends stick by me but never have I felt a kinship to the goals and aspirations everybody so adamantly chases.

Some chase sex and that's fine for them. I've probably done a bit of that in my day as well but it gets boring. The point is that this drive alone without the eccentricities of loving the person you're "doing it" with is easy. To get sex, you must have something else going on in your life and you also have to have almost an apathy towards love because love isn't necessarily sexy. Confidence is sexy and because of the apathy towards needing the attention of another human being in a real committed way, confidence comes easy to those who seek sex and nothing else. They may find themselves enamored at some point but for a long time, they can get away with a disconnectedness and self interest.

Some desire success and that's fine for them. They chase the goal of what they believe to be success in familiar things: A car, a house, maybe kids and a wife (although these are not necessarily their goals). These are the people who if they have their big screen TV and a modicum of interaction with the outside world, they are happy. They drown themselves in work related purposes and become enormously successful and some of them are very happy with this but me, I find it empty.

Some people are those who are just trying to get by and that's fine for them. These are the type of people that you ask them a question like, "What have you been up to lately?" and they say, "Work and home, man. Just living." There's nothing wrong with this. These people function perfectly in a society and I have often desired to be one with one major addendum, the presence of all encompassing, committed, and evolving love.

Being an outsider, I have watched people and partied with them and seen their interactions with each other and for a long time, I was ok with just being alone and by myself but I came to realize that as much as I was ok by myself and ok with allowing my partner space and time, I wanted to feel a sense of growth in a relationship really badly. I also wanted the attention and closeness at least once a night. As if even though the whole world was screwed up and pissed us both off equally, we'd at least have each other to come home to and say, wow was today f***** up.

Some people do a fine job of dealing with this process on their own but then the question comes up, what do they need other people for at all? I think the answer is simple: sex and love. They may not need it as much but they still need it.

What is love then? Those moments when he remembers to lock the door; when she needs a hug and he's physically there to give it to her; when he does all the household chores because he had nothing better to do; when she's had a hard day and wants to be left alone and he watches TV in the other room.

Love is an understanding between two people that they will feel that way no matter what. That distance, time, situations cannot diminish the feelings that two people have for each other. Love is an understanding that when somebody says they need something the other person complies without question.

Come to think of it, I have been a bad lover because I have been so messed up over my own loneliness that I have forgotten what it means to truly love another person. At this point, I hope it's not too late to turn that around but I can be a good lover and a good person, if I try.

Dreams

Last night, my brain had a strange fecundity for odd dreams like a strange man in an outrageously dark costume riding into a circus tent to sing "what's this?" slightly differently; destroying the basket to his hot air balloon and then magically forming a new basket, floating away after he climbed a large staircase I'm the middle of the circus tent, singing until he disappeared.

Perhaps the most memorable in my odd procession of dreams, however, was meeting a girl out in a grassy parking lot outside of a water park. I told her I didn't want her to leave me and she said, "where am I gonna go? I love you." We went into the water park and proceeded to get on its largest ride which happened to be the log flume.

It was like a roller coaster of large rises and drops; we genuinely had a great time, and she stayed with me through the various tide pools where more people could get on. There were many of these but oddly enough, we stayed just the two of us for most of the ride.

Towards the end however, two kids, between the ages of 8 and 10 got into our log with us and I was having fun with them and living vicariously through their joy but she couldn't take it and she boarded another log, by herself until the ride was over. I didn't see her until the ride was over but the kids got off before the ride ended and I rode to the end by myself.

In that time, I began to enjoy the ride for the ride and at the end of it, we met up again to board a bus home. Some wild scraggly guys, looking like the possie from the movie, The Crow, got on our bus and sat across from us and they were loud and obnoxious until our bus split as if by osmosis and they went one way and we went another. I fell asleep on her shoulder and woke up to my phone ringing. I felt happy though and oddly confident when I awoke. Dreams are weird...

What is the purpose of life?

For the last five years, I have been painfully searching for an answer to this question and have hopped from relationship to relationship because I sincerely believed I had the answer. Recently, I have even shut down my own life because I am still chasing that solution that I believed so strongly in.

To me, I believed that life's purpose was that no matter what you may chose to do with it, the ultimate purpose of life was that at the end of the day, when all is said and done, you have one person (because it's hard to focus on the myriad of people that come in and out of your life; especially if you have a heart so big, you spread your love out like cancer) who you come home to; who you can talk to about anything; who is always happy to see you and who you can share your life with nonselfeshly as much as they share thier life with you.

I have thought, up until this point of being terribly lost, that this person/staple was the purpose of life becuase life is too large and too vast to view by one's self.

Love, however pure, it seems is not infallible, and although I would wait an eternity to attain this specific purpose of life with the one I have in mind, It seems life continually makes the plan for me these sordid five years that I won't have anyone, even someone who I believe 100% truly loves me, to enjoy that love with, at the end of the day.

Therefore, I don't know what to do, but I have figured out through a good night of sleep and some clarity that I will have to do without that one person theory.

What I want to obtain is perfection and I know where my perfection is. I've felt it. Therefore it's even more painful to see those around me who do not know theirs and I want to nurture them. I have so much love to give it's painful. I need people strong enough to recieve that kind of love in my life.

Right now, I am waiting because my heart tells me to wait. I don't know why but it tells me that life will give me what I desire if I wait. My mind drives in all different directions but my heart still wants one thing...

Dear Sarah (My trip across the country on a Greyhound bus)

Trip quotes:

"...Maybe it is that I long not for the perfect but for the complete, and there is something incomplete about a life that is dedicated to escape from life."

"Responsible behavior does not increase love, nor does irresponsible behavior decrease it."

One can only love someone because they feel that person is deserving of their love. It is a gift as opposed to a codependency; it is shared as opposed to harbored.

Prologue:

My dearest little Wrenna, My noble Kudra, I have spent many days heatedly in intensely reading and looking into myself and although I do not discount that I will still need the counseling and medication to mediate my physical shortcomings and abnormalities, I believe I have, too late, discovered the nature of how to truly love you. If only we could press rewind and I keep the knowledge I have at this juncture.

The bus ride has an uncanny length and ennui to it. Your diatribe holds me at bay while my heart continually attacks me from the inside out and I can't seem to shake the pain that pulsates like a nuclear reactor.

At least the landscape's pretty. The rolling hills and greenery have a certain vacillating nature to them and they change as quickly as desert changes to coniferous forest. On our way to Flagstaff, one could almost mistake the trees and forests for the winding highways that weave the a-linear loom of the Virginia mountainside. However, without warning, the landscape tricks me and transforms back into desert only a few minutes out of Flagstaff.

At the bus station in Flagstaff, I had my first encounter with serious dehydration. In all the months of being in Arizona, I had yet to see a person lying face down, surrounded by 40 Ounce bottles of Old English, while a clearly agitated policeman, uniformed in black clothing talked to them and stared ashamedly at the crowd of onlookers, to keep them alive. The desert giveth and now I see it also taketh away.

"Looking out a dirty old window," all of a sudden there is nothing but shoddy brown fences, stale yellow grass, dirt and light green shrubbery as far as the eyes can see. In the distance, scattered mountain ranges loom like mice on the horizon. For the distance away that they are, however, it could be hours by rocket car before anyone were to reach them.

As with the desert, the way it sleeps in its sun soaked pain and barren soul; so too must I try to mimic it and hope, at the very least, that my tepid dreams carry me far, far away from the moment.

I awake to see a train running parallel to our bus. Nothing seems to exist on this road but the occasional car, trucks, and other busses like ours. The train is an indication of a legendary tradition of how the west was won. The desolation around it, however, indicates how little changes.

We enter the Navajo lands only to find it's a blink of an eye through its "city". So this is where the trail of tears ends for them. A faint trace of society breaths its quick breath and then melts back into the desert like your mother's candlewax. I think of the trail of tears and the hardships they endured and although the situation was ten times worse for them, the ironic conclusion beats me with a cudgel as I begin to mutely cry as we continue on my own trail of tears to Roanoke, VA.

Dusk brings renewed strength in me. My dichotomy has been known to me my whole life that during the daytime, I am overrun by fear, sadness and stress until night falls and I become fecund with, at the very least, a modicum of relaxation. The strange thing is that during the day, even if I turn off all the lights and block out the sun's face, my unease still exists as an unconquerable force. This is not to say that I am devoid of the unrest and uneasiness at night but I find it easier to control and/or moderate.

The desert begins to fade and becomes populated with medium sized trees. The dusky sun turns the clouds navy blue and the yellow grass, under the bold green trees, shines like the gold that I have, many times dug from your eyes and into my soul. The vastness of it all still exists, though, and I look out past the medium sized trees, over their tops and into the immortality of a desert motif not unlike the immortal motif that exists in my heart. Just like my love, the horizon doesn't seem to ever end...

There are three boys accompanying us on this trip and they sit in the seats around me making apparent the reason for their friendship in their callow interactions. Instantly, I see why their friendship works like a well-oiled machine. They each play a special role in their primitive dynamic:

The first sits a seat up on the opposite side of the bus. He is the quiet one who's so quiet, he mumbles like an old jazz man when he speaks. He opens his mouth only when he has, "a real gem." I quote this because his mumbling and short sense of humor makes his statements so queer that his gems might as well be cubic zirconium.

The second sits directly behind him and across from me. He continually talks, forcing the petulant and pusillanimous diatribe to plod on at gun point with his 50/50 style of humor. By this I mean not every jewel is a diamond but occasionally he makes the others laugh. He fires so rapidly, however, that it would seem as if they were laughing at everything he says. He keeps on using the same phrase over and over and it sends pains into my brain like bullets each time he says, "Mike Laaaaaaaauuury," which makes the third titter like a 12 year old girl, loudly and constantly.

The third, interjects rarely but when he does, it's always loud in addition to the loudness of its nonsense. I realize quickly that the reason he interjects rarely is because he's always laughing with the high pitched melody of a retarded tweety bird. His phrases are just as loud and high pitched as that retarded tweety bird as well and he might resemble most closely, from cartoon history, the kid with the beanie over his eyes on Fat Albert.

What a combination they make, feeding off each other’s personalities like a pack of wild Dobermans puppies.

My saving grace is a middle ages Native American man with one blind and glossed over eye that sits next to me. He is quiet as a mouse but every once and a while, he seems to force a chuckle at some joke that may very well come from nowhere. I try to address him twice and ask him where he's going but he acts as if he doesn't hear me or maybe he doesn't. Despite his silence, in the midst of the three black stooges, I can respect his quiet and demure verisimilitude.

The desert stretches out to eternity still but it's now greener than it was when we started our trip. Honestly, I'm growing tired of the reminders of how long eternity is and shortly after starting this trip, I would love it, if it could be over.

The storm clouds gather in sunset's funeral procession. Behind them, the mountains and hills quickly cloak the sun's death. The pinks and the blues of the thick, threatening clouds mix together and cloak the horizon like a mourner's veil. I think of a Grateful Dead quote to end the day with as I begin drifting off to sleep, "what a long strange trip it's been..."

The sweet smell of urinal cakes permeates the back of the bus and I rewrite those lyrics on this page: What a long strange trip I have to travel; my feet, don't fail me now...

Coming into Albuquerque, we pass by an Indian Casino, or maybe it should be called a Native American casino? I don't know. In any case, there are thirty feet tall arrows in the parking lot that lead up to the door. It's truly amazing. Vicious and enticing because of its in your face nature, I think to myself, "what pizzaz!" I can see, now, how they're getting their reparations and it makes me think, "if only we could have them teach the hood rats who still claim white people owe them something because their ancestors were slaves." I immediately feel guilty for this thought...

The real sight was before we even made it close to the city; while we were still over the vast mountains that overlook the city of Albuquerque. Looking down on the city, I think of how it looks like a giant Christmas shrub; the electric orgasm of light being characteristic of all the dreams I've had about desert cities and the make out points that overlook them. As I think of the couples in movies who sit on the side of the road and look out on the light shows of a city from points on a mountain just like this, I think to myself how much I wish you were here.

Lines of bright buildings looked like a light tapestry and the desert around it, dark and cold as it was, made me think of this picture hanging from a wall of God's studio apartment if you were standing sideways in heaven and looking down.

As we get to Albuquerque, the blind Native American speaks to me and it comes as such a shock, I am barely able to listen to him begin to quickly tell me about basketball games in Albuquerque and friend's he's come to visit and how he loves Albuquerque because there's always something to do. I feel bad because I try to reiterate what he told me by telling him to enjoy the basketball game while he tells me, "you mean the concert?" He quickly leaves as if hurt by my lack of attention. I want to tell him I'm a little out of it from sleepiness and I did try to listen but I thought he was mute and deaf but he's gone before I can really say a word.

We're leaving Albuquerque! I wonder if I'll sleep tonight? With renewed vigor from a Venom energy drink I had in the station, I wonder if I'll sleep tonight or just read Tom Robbins? I feel like reading and writing but I've been doing those things all day. I wonder if I can apply this night time vigor to my internet searches for places to go for training and jobs?

HA! I'm supposed to be enjoying my trip and yet, I'm thinking about jobs...

I feel revitalized and good. It's an odd thing: feeling this good and in control at night when just hours ago daytime beat me into submission and pain but as I mentioned before, this is my dichotomy; at least for now.

In any case, the idiot trio got a new musketeer in Albuquerque; a middle aged, larger man who they all seemed to cling to like a Michael Jordan mentor coming from nowhere to imbue them with wisdom and superficial attention. They clung to his every word a he began to speak loudly about getting away from the police and smuggling kilos of high grade pot all around the country.

My mind thinks, "idiots..." until I think about my own problems with keeping my mouth shut and I begin to learn the hard way that this i a karmic lesson that I feel I will have had beaten into me, figuratively speaking of course, by the time he gets of the bus... Karma's a bitch...

The bus backs up sharply and stalls. They tell us it could be hours before we get another bus out there and I begin to feel the energy that I got from the drink morph into panic as I begin to fear being trapped in Albuquerque. The feeling is similar to claustrophobia and then Facebook makes it worse as I try to call you but cannot reach you to quell my anxiety.

Last night we were laid over in Albuquerque because of mechanical troubles with the bus and my nerves caught up with me in the worst way. I began to fear being stuck there and our lack of moving forward plus the caffeine in my system managed to cause me to have a panic attack that only two Advil PM's were able to put down. I harassed you though, and for that, I am sorry from the bottom of my heart.

Today, we were also laid over for hours, because of mechanical troubles, in Amarillo Texas. So, I suppose this is standard practice for the Greyhound bus system. As I thought all along, I should have flown. Long trips amidst times of crisis (whether it be emotional, physical or mental or in my case, all three) are a bad idea, as I have learned. My theory is that enough people fly now a days that the busses are really underfunded and under taken care of.

My heart sinks like I had a lead weight on my chest because I miss you so badly and this journey, last night and today, is proving to be a hellish nightmare. I wish you were here to hold my hand or at the very least I wish I could hear your voice to calm me down. I haven't heard from you at all last night or today so I'm thinking you may be at the point of isolation from me. In lieu of this, I decide that after Amarillo Texas or Yellow Texas (I get a kick out of this because the bus station smells strongly of urine) I won't call you or text you until you call or text me. It hurts like hell but if it's what must be done, then bon voyage my love; until I return...

PS: I needed a smoke so I bought a pack of the only kind of cigarettes they sold in Albuquerque called All Natural Natives. They're disgusting. Never buy them...

PPS: Stuck in my head on repeat: "WONDERBOY! What is the secret of your power?"

PPPS: Choked down a hot dog, because my stomach still aches from missing you, and thought of "you gais want a hot dawg?"

I woke up this morning, half asleep, to tell the guy sitting across from me, "You have to pick up Oliver James from band practice, hunnie." Luckily, he had a sense of humor and we laughed and talked for a while about other things in order to get over the awkward moment of me addressing him as a beautiful red head.

The Texas deserts Morphed slowly into fields. A plethora of yellow grass waved at me as if to say, "Welcome to Texas, we got pee grass here." The farther I get from you the more intense the pain is, I think to myself, with quiet resolve and a turned away face, "I wish it didn't have to be this way."

Oklahoma brings back the sweltering, sticky and humid heat I've met before. The fields roll back and forth and up and down with the familiar dips and curves of Virginia and before I'm with my parents, I feel their home upon me. The only difference is that here, there's still many dry patches, scattered sparsely across the unforgiving hammer of the mid-day sun. The best way to describe Oklahoma: Where the fields outnumber the trees.

Reaching Oklahoma City, I found out quickly that it's one of the worst terminals in the country. Here, they had no place to charge our phones, the staff was rude, and we got there so late that the only bus to Little Rock Arkansas was at 12:15 AM. It was, at the time of arrival, 12:30 PM. The terminal consisted of bathrooms that looked like subway entrances (the boy’s bathroom looked like a subway or one of those weird torture chambers from the first SAW movie.) There were food machines and game machines that were not in use but there were signs all over to not unplug them to charge their phones. The center of the room consisted of uncomfortable benches that you could not lay down on because of the uncomfortable arm rests that were spaced just evenly and low enough to not allow weary travelers a place to lie down.

Outside the heat was unforgiving and the nearest restaurant chain or stores were said to be six blocks away. Fortunately, a girl I was traveling with who desperately wanted me to believe in God, named Johanny told me that she got her ticket changed for an earlier bus at 4:00 PM and I managed to do the same. Unfortunately it was still only 1:00 PM so I went with her and some people she had become acquainted with on the bus to a restaurant that they saw from the girls room upstairs.

It was a hot dog and spaghetti restaurant that was very small but it filled our bellies as we talked about our different situations. The women I sat with were 23 (A single mom whose boyfriend was in jail. She traveled with her seven year old son who liked to mimic the sounds of guns and bombs the entire trip) 30 (Johanny who as I said was a girl who wanted me to believe in God. She had just gotten done with a semester of theology at some university) and a third lady who was a truck driver but did not give her age. I imagined she was over 40 though because she was certainly an older woman. They talked to me and gave me council and represented the first road family I have had. They gave me such warmth that I found unusual in strangers but I thought of Blanche Dubois from A Streetcar Named Desire when she said, "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."

The rest of the trip my writings fell off but I remember thinking in Knoxville TN: "Knoxville, where the beards are as thick on the women as they are on the men." For real though, I saw a bearded lady.

Going towards Roanoke, I got a call from Dan who said to get off the bus at Wythville which saved me about an hour and a half. On the way there (because I know how conversation seems to make time go quicker, I talked to a nice ex stripper / 24 year old mother named Ginger. I tried to talk to her a little bit about what I was going through but instead she poured out her whole story to me as well as her philosophies and I couldn't really get a word in edgewise. She was very sweet and very nice, she just had no off button.

Getting into Wythville my head swam with thoughts of what I was going to do to get my life in order as quickly as possible to make my way back to you because the pain in my heart was so intense I probably looked the a crack addict going through withdrawal. Since then I have determined that I can probably get my life together rather quickly and could have gotten my life together there as well, however, this wasn't just about me, it was about you as well.

I'm thinking that a few weeks of counseling will put me in the right direction. Besides that, I grasped how to get a job while I was there and had a plan in place that would have taken care of that while I was still with you. I know I need to soul search but my mind's made up that if you'd have me, I'd have nobody else. It was always you. So, I think the plan at this point is that I will live my life until you're ready to begin dating again and then ask you at that point if it's still me you want. At the moment, though, I love you more than anything in the world and I await you're getting better because being with you is the best thing I've ever done.

I love you and I wish you all the best. Until we meet again.

Love,

Dylan

The Ethics of The Death Penalty

Ethics is the basis for intelligence on a spiritual level. If one sees an issue and assumes no moral responsibility, either he is naïve, like Linda Pastan in her poem called Ethics, or he has no moral compass. I define moral compass as: one’s inner conscience telling them the difference between right and wrong.

A person’s moral compass is often clear because many decisions we make on a daily basis are clear cut; for instance: Last night, a guy behind me on line for cheese steaks, was talking on the cell phone about inappropriate topics and being too loud about it in front of children and everybody else in line. I had options: I could have hit him in the face, in which case he’d stop saying inappropriate things in front of children and I may get a moment satisfaction that I hit a jerk, but he also might have hit back, he could have shot me, etc. The point is, in most cases, when and where it can easily be avoided, violence is not an option.

The shades of gray enter the equation when we talk about things more complicated than a daily issue and it is here that both sides seem to have the intelligent and logical moral decision, even though both sides can be proven wrong. Our moral compasses become tricky when it comes to the issues that have good points on both sides, because the intelligent answer is not as blatant and/or obvious as it is with, “Should I hit this asshole or not?”

In her poem on Ethics, Pastan even puts it to us that sometimes, only our experiences can guide us towards a strong feeling either way, on issues that do not normally apply to us.

In my last paper, I got comfortable being able to say things that I normally keep inside due to their personal nature and I hope to be able to do the same with this paper. It is in this respect that I give the example of abortion.

If you asked me back in high school what I thought on this topic, I’d tell you I find it horrifying to think about killing a child, especially one that is my own. I know that there are those out there who argue that a child isn’t actually living until 8-10 weeks (when it starts to look like a human being and not like a salamander), when their heart is beating, when they develop a body shape, or whatever but when you’ve gotten that little pee stick that tells you that you’ve created a living thing. When this happens, it doesn’t matter if it’s living or not, you get a feeling in your heart that cannot be described in words. Also, it’s not only in your heart; it resonates through your body like the eulogy of a mother or father. I haven’t lost my parents yet but I have lost a grandfather who I was very close with and the fact that I never got to say goodbye was the same guttural feeling I got as when I killed my potential child.

It’s very easy to say a good writer is supposed to be able to argue both sides but when you’ve had a feeling like that and have went through it anyway, it becomes incredibly difficult to be able to say truthfully, you find people who go through with abortions, are abhorrent.

When I was at the clinic, I didn’t want to have my girlfriend abort the baby. In all honesty, I wanted her to keep it, but she told me that it was not the time for it and that it would ruin our lives and that was the end. I didn’t need reassurance of this at any point because my job was to be there for her, to hold her hand and tell her she was making the right decision; to stand by her and her initial feelings so that she wouldn’t be conflicted, confused or be caused any more stress than she had to be. I did it without batting an eyelash because that’s what a good person does.

Morally, was it the right decision? Maybe, maybe not, but it was a hard one to make and one that would cause us both to face a lot of emotions and physical feelings. That’s why I can never agree with a person who stands outside one of those clinics with pictures of dead babies and angry looks on their faces putting a political spin on a very personal decision. Even someone who thinks they have the right to say anything about a woman’s right to choose at home, is in my opinion, unqualified for the life of community.

So as you can see, choosing a moral issue to argue the opposite on is a difficult process. It may seem unnecessary that I write two pages on my decision process but I feel it is necessary for the emphasis that to argue the opposite side makes for a lesser perspective than one that I have experienced.

In lieu of the fact, that I can’t argue abortion, I have chosen to argue capital punishment. Many believe that capital punishment is immoral and wrong. I am not one of these people but I will seek to explain why they feel this way and argue for the immorality of capital punishment.

The systems in place in the United States today to put prisoners to death are lethal injection, electrocution, the gas chamber, firing squad, and hanging. Some of the immorality in these methods is obvious but some are more humane than others.

First up on the list is lethal injection. Lethal injection is a relatively new method of execution. Gaining popularity as recently as the 20th century, lethal injection was brought about as an alternative to electrocution, hanging, a firing squad, the gas chamber and beheading a subject. Lethal injection is the number one form of capital punishment in the United States today being utilized in 36 states, excluding being the preferred execution method of our federal government.

In the process of lethal injection, 3 drugs are utilized to kill a condemned prisoner. The first of these drugs is Sodium thiopental. Sodium thiopental is, according to wikipedia, “an ultra-short action barbiturate.” It acts as an anesthetic to render a prisoner unconscious within minutes. This is given to make sure that the condemned doesn’t feel pain as he dies. The typical doses of this drug are 2-5 grams which is about 3 times the dose that medical professionals use in assisted suicide. This drug was primarily used for inducing comas which according to research can mean that the body is inactive while certain parts of the brain are still operational. If a person was in a coma but still had an active part of his brain during this procedure, he would suffer silently while parts of his body shut down. In its self, thiopental can cause respiratory depression and vascular collapse. Unlike the next drug in the cycle, it is not considered to be non-depolarizing so with such a high dose in the body, it is possible that the brain does not shut down but simply loses consciousness and the body collapses before any of the other drugs can be administered. The purpose of using such a high dose is to make sure the person is out but suppose the displacement into the body happens quicker in an active substance abuser and the body breaks down while they are still conscious enough to feel it but not enough to cry out in pain. Many who are opposed to this procedure site just that and research showed on certain patients of one correctional facility that the amount of this drug in an inmates system, during the execution was less than the amount that is used in an open heart surgery.

The second ingredient in the cocktail is a drug called Pancuronium. According to my research, this chemical is non-depolarizing which means that it does not cause changes in a cells membrane potential and/or it does not have the possibility of affecting the electrical impulses passed between cells in the body. What it does do is relax the muscles, causing “complete fast and sustained paralysis of the skeletal striated muscles, including the diaphragm and the rest of the respiratory muscles.” The problem with this chemical is, if the person is not knocked out from the barbiturate, Sodium thiopental, and many prisoners who have been on lots of different drugs including small to large doses of barbiturates for recreational use, this person will suffer death from asphyxiation in 15-30 seconds and it would be an extremely terrifying way to die.

If they make it through the dose of Pancuronium, without dying of asphyxiation, they have to suffer the third drug in the cocktail, potassium chloride. The third drug in the cocktail, potassium chloride, stops the heart muscle and causes death by cardiac arrest. People in the medical community know this death as hyperkalemia or an excess of potassium. It causes cardiac arrest and can kill prisoners affectively in minutes especially with the amount given but in the folly of this system, as researchers have found, it is possible that not enough of this drug takes effect and the person’s heart slows down while he is paralyzed and he simply cannot scream out in pain, although he is feeling it.

The three drugs mixed outside the body can cause precipitation or “formation of a solid in a solution during a chemical reaction.” If a person’s circulatory system does not move quick enough, and these drugs especially the very first one can slow the circulation of the body, then is there not the possibility that precipitation could occur inside the body causing solids and a painful build up inside the prisoner himself. This would definitely fall within the realm of cruel and unusual punishment.

Also the drugs are monitored by prison guard officials as opposed to health care professionals. The risk of mistakes and errors while administering a carefully scientific treatment is greatly increased. For instance, any one of these three being placed in the wrong order or too much or too little of the drugs or the wrong drugs being put in the system can result in an incredibly painful way to die. If a person is not completely under because thiopental is a short acting barbiturate then he may be paralyzed but still in a great amount of pain even though he can’t tell us that.

Resistance to the drugs is a factor, as well as the screw-ups that can occur in the order these drugs are given or the amounts that they are given. Research conducted by the university of Miami suggested that in certain cases the amount of thiopental in a prisoners system at the time of death was less than the amount used in a common surgery. They were awake to feel their lungs stop responding as they suffocated alive.

The second form of capital punishment is electrocution. Electrocution, also known as the electric chair or simply “the chair,” is utilized in 6 of the United States today with Oklahoma and Illinois keeping it as an option, should lethal injection be judged unconstitutional. This method of execution is utilized only in the United States; though it was used briefly in the Philippines in 1924 and 1976. As recently as 2008, the Nebraska Supreme court found the electric chair to be “cruel and unusual punishment” and removed it as a method of execution in Nebraska altogether. Currently it’s only used as a secondary method of execution because Nebraska was the last state to be using it as the primary method of execution.

Like lethal injection, the electric chair works in stages. Varying levels of electricity are sent through the condemned’s body until that person is dead.

The first wave of electricity is supposed to cause unconsciousness and brain death, the second was supposed to cause damage to the vital organs and an over stimulation of the heart, resulting in death.

Being that the electric chair is an elective procedure today, or one that a prisoner has to request rather than is subjected to without the choice between that and lethal injection, there are few dissentions to this procedure. The risks to this procedure are obvious because of the extreme cases that have been observed when it has been utilized. In Florida, there was a case where flames shot forth from the head of a prisoner named Pedro Medina and that was 1997. In 1999 Allen Lee Davis, convicted of murder was executed via the electric chair and his face was bruised and bloodied so much so that the pictures made their way to the internet and Florida’s primary execution method was changed to lethal injection, permanently, as of 2008.

Next up on the list is the gas chamber. The gas chamber is currently used in 3 states as a secondary execution method.

The Gas chamber uses one of 3 gases. These are hydrogen cyanide, carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide. Through a process of dipping potassium cyanide into a concentrated batch of sulfuric acid, HCN or hydrogen cyanide is created and the prisoner most commonly undergoes convulsions and/or excessive drooling before he finally dies. The last person to be executed by means of the gas chamber was in 1999.

As it is a secondary execution method, there are, once again, few dissentions. We know it to be cruel and unusual punishment because in 1994 a federal judge declared the gas chamber, “cruel and unusual punishment,” even though it’s used as a secondary method only by choice of the condemned today.

The last two methods of execution are firing squad and hanging.

Hanging is currently a secondary option in Washington and New Hampshire. All other states have discontinued the practice as archaic or outdated. The problems with hanging are immense and the risk of losing the head in the long drop is only the least of the problems with the execution method. The most notable problem with this method is that if the neck does not break and the head stays on, it can take a person a while to die of asphyxiation due to hanging. As has been noted previously in this paper though, secondary methods of execution like hanging are on their way out and have been for some time. The best read from a death penalty abolitionist on the topic was written by a man named Clinton Duffy who served as warden of San Quinton prison between 1940 and 1952. His memoir is entitled Eighty Eight Men and Two Women.

The firing squad option is utilized today in only Oklahoma and Utah. It was found to be cruel and unusual because when firing squads were prevalent in every state, the practice was supposed to be that one man on the squad had a blank so that each man on the firing squad had the peace of mind that his bullet might not have been one used to kill but on January 17, 1977 a prisoner at Utah state prison named Gary Gilmore was sentenced to die in front of a firing squad and his brother found that all five bullets were live through examining his brother’s shirt. The result was that most states banned the practice. As of today, 3 remaining inmates have the choice of death by firing squad and after they make their choices, it is likely this method of execution will be phased out of existence for all time. Only as a back up, will it be practiced again, and it will be kept as a back up only for times of war.

So as you can see, most methods of execution are already being phased out with the main methods of execution still around, dwindling. Lethal injection holds a strong place in execution methods and is still all to prevalent today but Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands have no death penalty statute. As the masses begin to say that to kill a prisoner is wrong because America sucks at performing it, are they right?

A Mormon just believes

This seemingly blasphemous play called The Book of Mormon cleaned up at the Tony Awards with 9 awards including best musical.

"Like it’s closest relatives, 'The Producers' and 'Avenue Q,' it’s meant to be offensive, but here’s the thing: It’s really great that this won. The past decade or so of Broadway has become less and less original and more and more based on movies. People don’t want to invest in something they aren’t sure of, so if they have a choice between 'Rocky' the musical and something unknown, 'Rocky' will win every time.

'Mormon' has a lot going for it: catchy music, an irreverent story, and most importantly, a well-known creative team. Honestly, 'South Park' is probably what gave the show the boost it needed to succeed. But the story is original and smart and funny, and that’s what American musical theater has traditionally been. It’s a nice change."

Quoted from - http://www.autostraddle.com/the-2011-tony-awards-were-really-gay-93441/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tggtPHDmrR8&feature=player_embedded#at=245

The Rantings and Ravings of a Madman (an article)

It's always the gift of the writer to spin his best webs of enchantment when he's trashed out of his skull because everybody likes to read the ravings of a mad man. The talent is learning to fuction better in said states. A trashy town and a back alley bar aren't the best way to do that, but when you find yourself face down in the gutter, it seems like a perfectly reasonable time to write about Don Quixote or Alice. Tripped out on a million different substances, that create colors like a lightbright, interchanging reality to a series of pixels that can be manipulated by the users mind, is a great way to have a million stories to tell and no way to tell them.

Isn't it strange, how sometimes the story one's trying to tell are deep within their ravings of lunacy? Lewis Caroll smokes opium and writes about a catapillar that does the same, while an old sea salt like Ernest Hemingway who lived in the Florida keys writes about an old man, in a fishing boat out in the sea. Then he blows his brains out. That story made me want to blow my brains out at points, so I feel his pain. I got the message. Fishing is incredibly long and drawn out and has very little payback. It makes you want to put a twelve gage between your eyes and pull the trigger; I get it now.

Some authors don't even try to disguise their stories like John Steinbeck who wrote, "Travels With Charley" which was a true story about him and his dog. Bill Bryson can tell a fantastic story with his book, "Into The Woods."

Still other authors, like Tim O'Brien and Jean Sheppard tell true life stories that either slightly resemble their own lives or are complete fabrications of something that associates with their own lives in no way, shape or form. I suppose that's true freedom for a writer; to totally escape their own reality; but damned I'd be if F. Scott Fitzgerald wasn't a rich playboy and J. D. Salenger an emo shut in.

The truth of the matter is most likely this: sometimes insanity and the loss of ones minds lead them back to themselves and sometimes it leads them into some other direction that matters very little to reality's floundering norms. In any case, they're all a bunch of crazy people, or they just wouldn't be that good.