'Bye Tookie

The state of Cal-i-foh-nyah killed a man about three hours ago. He had spent the last twenty-five years of his life on Death Row in San Quentin, writing children's books and warning against the dangers of gang life. He was 51.

I'm glad I live in a country that's thought better of that sort of savagery. No-one would miss Paul Bernardo, or Karla Homolka for that matter (or especially). But Shannon Murrin, who spent five years in prison before his acquittal in the Mindy Tran murder case, Stephen Truscott--sentenced to hang at 15 for a killing he didn't commit, and Rodney Cain, to name only three, would have objected.

Tookie Williams was most likely guilty of all charges against him. But it's as right to kill him as it was for him to kill in the first place. And he was probably more useful as a live warning against the drug & gang lifestyle than he is as fertilizer.

It's seems wrong, too, that given the Gubernator's record of "playful" sexual harrassment, and the "youthful indiscretions" of the current Chief Executive, that a man who's made mistakes can get no understanding from them.