Various thoughts from today's paper
The Dec. 14 edition of USA Today carried this cover story: "Nurse shortage puts school kids at risk." SALEM, Ohio - Eight-year-old Gavin Ward couldn't talk. He could barely breathe. And by the time school nurse Patty Baker got the call on her cellphone that morning early last spring, the secretary looking after Gavin seemed frantic.
Baker had just arrived at another school a couple of miles away to help Logan Rice, a 10-year-old diabetic crashing from a sugar low.
Now, as the secretary at the other school pressed the phone to Gavin's chest, Baker could hear the scratchy wheezing. She had been ordered by the principal to stay by Logan's side. Should she stay with Logan, or leave to help Gavin?
Excuse me? Don't these schools know the number for 911? Talk about a lawyer's dream come true.
Since when did schools begin doubling as health care institutions? I've been trying to think back over my school years and the only school I attended that had a nurse (and believe me, I was chucked out of more then a few of them) was a high school that had over 2200 students attending it. I don't remember any of the students at these schools having been any worse for the wear for the lack of a nurse.
*SIGHS*
In that same paper was the story about the execution of "Tookie" Williams. The first line in the story reads:The execution of gangster Stanley "Tookie" Williams is one more dramatic push moving the nation closer to abolishing the death penalty.
Talk about a double take. I had to read it twice to be sure I read it correctly. It wasn't until I read the second line: Or it is the criminal justice system duly working to rid society of a brutal and remorseless killer.
Okay, so their is some balance in the story after all.
I cannot say if Tookie should or should not have been executed. I wasn't there 25 years ago so I didn't see it. I can only go by what the courts ruled. But to execute a man after 25 years in jail strikes me as counter productive. Especially someone that has become an effective anti-gang activist.
Those same feelings chorused through me after Carla Fay Tucker was executed in Texas. I met and talked with her before her date with the chamber. She was convicted in the pick-axe murder of two people 14 years earlier.
Karla cleaned up her act and became a counselor to other prisoners. But even with the ferocity of the crime, what good did it do to kill this woman 14 years after the fact? Clearly her execution did not bring her victims back to life.
There are some folks I could inject, shoot, hang or whatever and sleep well that night. But it is hard to draw the line especially when the condemned has been in custody a decade or more and clearly cleaned up their act while in custody.
So how do you balance the scales to maintain the safety of society and serve the victim's need for justice against the need to be reasonable when it comes to sentencing and carrying out those sentences?
If I had all the answers, I'd run for God.
This "User Friendly" cartoon cracked me up. It takes a humorous swipe at CNN.
Good night Mrs. Whack. It's time to catch some ZZZs.
Baker had just arrived at another school a couple of miles away to help Logan Rice, a 10-year-old diabetic crashing from a sugar low.
Now, as the secretary at the other school pressed the phone to Gavin's chest, Baker could hear the scratchy wheezing. She had been ordered by the principal to stay by Logan's side. Should she stay with Logan, or leave to help Gavin?
Excuse me? Don't these schools know the number for 911? Talk about a lawyer's dream come true.
Since when did schools begin doubling as health care institutions? I've been trying to think back over my school years and the only school I attended that had a nurse (and believe me, I was chucked out of more then a few of them) was a high school that had over 2200 students attending it. I don't remember any of the students at these schools having been any worse for the wear for the lack of a nurse.
*SIGHS*
In that same paper was the story about the execution of "Tookie" Williams. The first line in the story reads:The execution of gangster Stanley "Tookie" Williams is one more dramatic push moving the nation closer to abolishing the death penalty.
Talk about a double take. I had to read it twice to be sure I read it correctly. It wasn't until I read the second line: Or it is the criminal justice system duly working to rid society of a brutal and remorseless killer.
Okay, so their is some balance in the story after all.
I cannot say if Tookie should or should not have been executed. I wasn't there 25 years ago so I didn't see it. I can only go by what the courts ruled. But to execute a man after 25 years in jail strikes me as counter productive. Especially someone that has become an effective anti-gang activist.
Those same feelings chorused through me after Carla Fay Tucker was executed in Texas. I met and talked with her before her date with the chamber. She was convicted in the pick-axe murder of two people 14 years earlier.
Karla cleaned up her act and became a counselor to other prisoners. But even with the ferocity of the crime, what good did it do to kill this woman 14 years after the fact? Clearly her execution did not bring her victims back to life.
There are some folks I could inject, shoot, hang or whatever and sleep well that night. But it is hard to draw the line especially when the condemned has been in custody a decade or more and clearly cleaned up their act while in custody.
So how do you balance the scales to maintain the safety of society and serve the victim's need for justice against the need to be reasonable when it comes to sentencing and carrying out those sentences?
If I had all the answers, I'd run for God.
This "User Friendly" cartoon cracked me up. It takes a humorous swipe at CNN.
Good night Mrs. Whack. It's time to catch some ZZZs.