The news of the explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine a few weeks ago only recently began to resonate with me. A methane buildup in the West Virginia coal mine led to the deaths of twenty-nine men and the worst disaster of its kind in forty years. The tragedy of this event was obvious and immediately apparent – most early stories focused on the toll it took on the locals and the implications for the families affected. Read the rest of this entry »
I can’t imagine any death-row inmate choosing lethal injection. Sure, if the choice is between the notoriously unreliable and undeniably painful electric chair or some fatal cocktail I’d leap for the syringe. But what if one of the choices is to stand in the open air and brace against a bullet through the heart? Maybe it’s the romantic in me, but I’d take the instant and dramatic gunshot over feeling my life ebb away in the cold, sterile air of an indoor execution chamber. Not to mention recent accounts of botched injections that required additional doses or observable pain in those last breaths.
This article in the Times about the last bastion of firing squad executions made me imagine the scenarios for the first time since Colonel Aureliano. Read the rest of this entry »
Dream of the Dragon 
