The American Way of Death

O.M.G. I wasn’t prepared for this visual over a first cup of coffee. Jayzus, Michael. And, your narrative… Lots of ways to spin off from there. Do we want a less industrial color scheme if the “guest” is a woman?

I can’t get with this… except to note that a country where the press can debate the merits of a firing squad vs lethal injection ought to be capable of arguing whether waterboarding is torture. We are, and we do.

Bad idea – the flag. Certainly, putting a bullet into that would become a capital crime. I like the color, it is a perfect expression of my government’s feeling toward me.

Who, exactly, is supposed to feel at home here?

A photo essay on places were we kill criminals would be provocative (in more ways than one!). For example, I just searched the Googles. Lethal injection rooms seem to look like hospital operating rooms, except less cluttered. Electric chair rooms look ugly and utilitarian. Gas chambers look like things you’d find in a submarine or undersea research device. Gallows often look like hastily built temporary scaffolding.

In individual cases, whose sensibilities are the designers trying to assuage and/or abrade?

Wow. How sick can you get?

“I mean, if it takes a minute for a guy to die after you’ve shot him, but it takes nine minutes to polish a guy off by lethal injection (and that’s if you can even find a vein), I think we’re looking at a pretty elegant solution here, don’t you?”

Quote: Fourteen people, including nine journalists from the local media, witnessed the gruesome event. Gardner, 49, was seated in a straight-backed metal chair, raised up on a platform. According to AP account, his hooded head was “secured by a strap across his forehead. Harness-like straps constrained his chest. His handcuffed arms hung at his sides. A white cloth square affixed to his chest over his heart—maybe 3 inches across—bore a black target.”

A prison official began a countdown from five. At two, five marksmen—police officers who had volunteered for the duty—took aim with Winchester rifles from 25 feet away, firing through a slot in a wall to obscure the gunmen’s identities. Four of the rifles were loaded with a single live bullet. The fifth contained an “ineffective” round, which gives the same recoil as a live bullet, in an effort to conceal who fired the fatal shot.

Perhaps a photo of the man hooded, strapped down, head slumped backwards, blood spurting out all over the place is what our perverted society should be really looking at?

Reporter Jennifer Dobner provided the following description: “Seconds before the impact of the bullets, Gardner’s left thumb twitched against his forefinger. When his chest was pierced, he clenched his fist. His arm pulled up slowly as if he were lifting something and then released. The motion repeated.”

Why can’t we outsorce this job to China as well?

Where’s the blood? Or maybe I should be asking, where’s the mop and bucket? Do victims of firing squad bleed heavily?

seeing this photo makes me ill.

the death penalty is more about theatrics than justice.

the chair, with the attached headrest and straps, appear to be the form of a person. actually, it’s a man-made form of a person, without the unknowable soul.

the sandbags are there to shield us.

i read that his last meal included lobster and a steak, as if the humane thing is to grant the condemned man a bit of luxury before the state shoots him to death.

i also read that one of the handful of shooters fired a blank round. those who pulled the triggers did not know if their bullet was real or not. does that alleviate any guilty feelings?

What is that “thing” that looks bolted to the wall just to the left of the sandbags – level with the top one – as we face the photo?

http://historyofourworld.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/the-omega-suites-lucinda-devlin-2000/

The ratio of live to blank ammo doesn’t really give the shooters any relief. The likelihood that you were the one who killed him is much greater than otherwise.

The composition initially struck me as finger bones holding a book, as though a giant skeleton were reading a book about executions.

You really don’t have to be seated to be shot, so the fact that it’s a chair with restraints is an obvious theatrical control. It would seem more dignified for everybody to let him stand and smoke. Or perhaps the officers here were also seated in chairs.

Lethal injection has always struck me as an extremely dehumanized and administrative way to kill somebody. Nobody is really responsible, it’s just a routine procedure that has lethal consequences. Like modern industrial warfare, it’s nothing personal. Management has made a decision and it’s our job to execute it. What I like (if that’s the word) about the firing squad is that you can’t avoid the fact that these people are so directly accountable for killing the prisoner. The one blank round notwithstanding, they have to point at the guy and fire; they’re not operating a specialized machine, throwing switches or doing something that in other circumstances would appear innocuous or even helpful, such as giving an injection. And the executioners can’t look away. I mean, if it were me in that chair I would hope that my killers were doing it not just because it was their job but because they also hated my guts and wanted revenge. And they had to stand in front of me in the same room and look at me. No hiding. Everybody has to carry the burden of their actions. Firing squad seems to come closer to that than other methods.

That is for ” hanging ” your coat !!! … lol !

Why is it we ” care ” more about this killing process than we ” care ” about what happens to the victim’s family/families ???