I got up late yesterday morning because the night before I had become absorbed in some of the video footage surrounding the botched execution of Christa Pike, the first woman to be subject to judicial execution in the state of Tennessee for 200 years. After two unsuccessful attempts to administer the lethal injections, she was transported to a local hospital where she is reportedly ‘fighting for her life’ and with a fair probability that if she survives then she may well be brain damaged as a result of the failed injections. The question is inevitably raised as to how such a procedure can go horribly wrong and the answer lies in two directions. Firstly, no medically qualified personnel would ever agree to administering the injections via an intravenous line and hence the injections would have been attempted by completely unqualified prison staff with the consequences that ensued. This followed another botched execution attempt earlier in the year so the prison authorities had due warning. Secondly there are some people who by reasons of their anatomy are very difficult in whom to insert IV lines and Christa Pike was one such individual (as her own lawyer had argued but was overruled) So, in legal theory, the sate of Tennessee might try to try to execute her again but not immediately as the governor has ordered a halt to all executions in the state until the end of the year. In the meantime, there will be the most intense media debate not helped by the fact that the full facts will never be known as the lawyers view of the whole botched attempt was often screened out by a curtain. One liberal American commentator even informed viewers that there had been a commission in the US in the 1890’s that had ruled out execution by lethal injection for exactly the two reasons described above. According to the US constitution, judicial execution is not allowed if punishments are ‘cruel or unusual’ and I would have thought that her lawyers would have been able to argue that death by lethal injection is cruel as some 7% of these fail. The Guardian newspaper take on all of this is interesting and supplies more contextual information. Lethal injection was supposed to be the humane alternative to firing squads and electric chairs. They in turn were seen as an improvement on hanging, which looked much like lynching in a system disproportionately handing the death penalty to black men. The age and ill health of those executed, and the ethical refusal of most medical staff to be involved, may contribute to botched injections. But analysis of autopsy results has provided compelling evidence that suffering is inherent; injections – especially those involving paralytic drugs – have merely disguised it. What is described as safeguarding the dignity of prisoners is really about reducing the discomfort of witnesses who would otherwise see their suffering. So having made a late start in the day, I am now looking forward to my saunter down the Hight Street in Bromsgrove where I go to my favourite cafe and see what the charity shops have to offer.
I got into town fairly late but made my way to my favourite cafe but via some charity shops. I stopped off at Poundland where I bought a cup of noodle containers with plastic lids that would double as soup containers as they each held 900ml as well as being well as BPA free. But this is not as it seems as I read a post from a chemist who argues problem with BPA is the “BP” part, AKA bisphenol. It’s an endocrine disruptor that strongly resembles a functional part of oestrogen. Plastic manufacturers know this. However, since BPA has become a sort of marketing boogeyman, they can claim things are “BPA free” while containing BPS, BPF, BPZ, and so on. As long as BP is in the compound, it’s a problem. In short, plastics of almost any sort are best avoided. I did come across a set of six high quality soup bowls that were being sold very cheaply as a set. The brand name was MALACASA and I learned from the web that this Chinese make is well regarded, superior to many European alternatives and specialising in affordable, high-temperature fired white and coloured porcelain dinnerware sets that are entirely lead-free and non-toxic. So now I am all set up with storage containers for the foreseeable future and later on in the afternoon, am going to try my hand at vegetable stock making. We are being subject to the Greens party conference and they are being attacked from both the left and the right of the political spectrum. The Labour party fears that the Greens will siphon off some of their support laving Labour seats a little vulnerable whilst the Tories are suspicious that an ‘unholy alliance’ between Labour, Lib Dem and Green councillors may deprive them of the leadership of many local councils. I was not particularly hungry this lunchtime but I experimented with a new kind of lunch which was to use up half a can of butter beans to which added some microwaved petit pois, and some ‘jack’ mackerel made a little more palatable by adding a big dollop of thousand Island dressing. TV tonight is not very inspiring but I am going to watch on catch-up ‘Florence Foster Jenkins’ which is the film biography of the New York socialite who thought of herself as being a brilliant singer whilst being one of the worst of all time and filling Carnegie Hall with an audience who were desperate to hear just how terrible she was. Meryl Street plays the major role brilliantly and the film is simultaneously incredibly humorous but filled with pathos at the same time. I have seen this film twice before but it is always worth watching again for some of the agonisingly funny sequences within it. Her wealthy friends, husband St Clair Bayfield, and accompanist Cosmé McMoon praised her endlessly and shielded her from criticism. At her private club recitals, audiences smiled, cheered, and hid their laughter behind handkerchiefs rather than tell her the truth. When people did laugh or critics wrote harsh reviews, she believed they were just jealous or malicious. The countdown to the American mid-term elections is proceeding apace now that these crucial elections are only just over four weeks away. It is almost certain that Trump knows he is doing incredibly badly in the polls and will almost certainly try to engage in activity to nullify them. Liberal opinion is split on whether Trump will attempt o make a preemptive strike and cancel the elections altogether (on the totally spurious argument that the country is under attack from hordes of illegal and undocumented migrants) or clog up the courts with challenging every single result once the elections have been held. I think the latter course is a little more likely as he will be able to claim that the election was ‘stolen’ from him (which quote applies to every election except the ones where he himself actually was the winner)