No buzzards were gliding overhead, but several helicopters circled, under black sky tinged blue. On the shore of a stunning bay at a placid moment, the state prepared to kill.

Outside the gates of San Quentin, people gathered to protest the impending execution of Stanley Tookie Williams. Hundreds became thousands as the midnight hour approached. Rage and calming prayers were in the air.

The operative God of the night was a governor. “Without an apology and atonement for these senseless and brutal killings, there can be no redemption,” Arnold Schwarzenegger had declared. Hours later, a new killing would be sanitized by law and euphemism. (Before dawn, a newscast on NPR’s “Morning Edition” would air the voice of a media witness who had observed the execution by lethal injection. Within seconds, his on-air report twice referred to the killing of Williams as a “medical procedure.”)

But at the prison gates, there were signs.

“The weak can never forgive.”

“No Death in My Name”

“Executions teach vengeance and violence.”

AUSTIN, Texas -- Pre-procrastination Christmas booklist! Look at this, fellow procrastinators -- almost two weeks before the actual day, and here I am to solve all your shopping problems with the annual one-stop, hit-the-bookstore with less than 24-hours-to-go, all-purpose Procrastinator's List.

Now, the only challenge is to hang onto the list long enough to get to a bookstore, lest we ONCE AGAIN wind up as the last customer at the Jiffy Mart at 11:45 p.m. Christmas Eve, trying to decide whether our nearest and dearest would prefer a nice jug of STP 40W or the new hemorrhoid cure.

For a terrific read and a great political yarn, "An Unreasonable Woman: A True Story of Shrimpers, Politicos, Polluters and the Fight for Seadrift, Texas" is my nomination for best surprise book of the year.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – (December 9, 2005) – Despite the heavy snow storm and bitter temperatures, Jonathan Meier, a 23 year-old divinity student and Columbus resident, is continuing a prayer vigil and hunger strike at the Ohio Statehouse to signal his disgust and distrust with House Bill 3 – the vote reform bill proposed and supported by GOP lawmakers.
Meier will continue the vigil Dec. 13 from 9am-11am on the Broad Street side of the Ohio Statehouse, at Broad and High Street. Supporters are welcome to join him in solidarity to show the lawmakers that the people of Ohio are in opposition to the bill.

Meier's hunger fast and vigil has been supported by sympathizers as far away as from Portand, Oregon and London, England. Meier also interviewed with a radio station covering the issue in Seattle.

Meier says that the demonstration is his way of highlighting the injustice of House Bill 3.

I have just read the article "Ohio Republicans Plan Holiday Burial for American Democracy" in the Dec. 6th Free Press (on Truthout).  The part about the disparity between the Dispatch poll and the outcome on the ballot issues sounds so very much like what happened in the Georgia Senatorial and Governor races in 2002 it is uncanny.  

It is pretty obvious that electronic touchscreen voting systems are the perfect vote rigging devices. "Irreverence is the champion of liberty, and its only sure defense."  The only safeguard I can see is for the press to conduct exit-type polls after the final tally to see how the polls square with the outcome.  If a number of polls were conducted after the election but before certification, it would be very difficult to argue against the integrity of numerous independent polls. 

In the 9/11 attack, a little over three thousand people were killed. Following that, the U S government was partially reorganized and the U S went to war. In the hurricanes, in the area around New Orleans, over six thousand people died. Now, over twelve hundred children are living with foster parents or in institutions because their birth parents cannot be located, dead or alive. Months later, the best the U S government can do for housing is temporary shelter in hotels, canvas tents and a few travel trailers. Over eighty percent of those who suffered the most were African/American. Is there a connection? How can the U S spend over $300 billion on war against a nation that had nothing to do with 9/11, and not take care of the survivors of hurricanes in our own land?

A new medical center, with a modern hospital, a college of medicine and allied sciences, a college of nursing, plus outlying clinics, costs approximately one billion dollars for construction and the first five years of operation. For the war in Iraq the U S could have built 300 of these modern medical centers throughout the world. Which