Oh, wow. This pair's harrowing stories - especially hers - place most of our own trivial concerns in deep, thoughtful perspective. This is injustice squared; unending nightmares; the depths of despair; inner peace as our only true source of refuge and comfort when solitude is forced upon us and finally, the power of the mind and spirit to transcend whatever the outrage visited upon us.
In the end, we are only what we think about. That, and how we react to the world outside our corporeal boundary; one that is constantly seeking to push and pull us this way and that and, all too often, not to our benefit.
Their stories summon a third actor - their antagonist - onto the stage: man's cruelty to his fellow travelers in the form of our most cruel and unusual death penalty. While there is simply no civilized way to purposely set out to kill another human being, somehow, when the state takes on the job, the result ends in gruesome and gore-ridden spectacle that is at least equal to that of a Roman arena.
From the incremental tearing of flesh and cartilage of the crucifixion until the still-quick corpse simply falls to the ground from lack of molecular adhesion, to the excruciating anticipation, but swift and merciful thunk of the guillotine, to the, initially, wildly thrashing, then bloated and purple bodies of the hangman, to the invention from Hell itself, the electric chair, with it's promise of swift, sure justice betrayed again and again by botched, um, execution and to today's new-and-improved, more 'civilized' method: the stealthy syringe, man seems never to tire of exacting a pound of flesh in pursuit of that dish best served cold: revenge.
It is interesting that the worst forms of capital punishment have flourished and persisted in those areas of America (and abroad) where the most virulent strains of Christianity (and others) have held sway. I always wonder that they never appear to examine the reasons they stay so pissed off about everything. All that intolerance must plumb wear 'em out.
NjW 419
Nigel Watson freethinker 727.493.1990 skype orbizen2
Blog: ORBizen Memo http://orbizenmemo.blogspot.com/
"There is no greater disaster than greed." – Lao-tzu
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Krishnamurti
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