Maria’s space

I came across an article that was about lethal injection.  The article said that lethal injections may cause suffocation.  Now I do not believe in the death sentence and thi makes me feel even moer against it.  “Some prisoners executed by lethal injection in the United States may die of suffocation while they are still conscious and in pain, University of Miami researchers said yesterday in a study that concluded the drugs do not work as intended…They said the potassium chloride, which causes an intense burning sensation, did not reliably hasten death, finding prisoners given it died no faster than those who got only the other two drugs.They concluded that the pancuronium was the only reliably fatal part of the cocktail, meaning the executed may actually have died of suffocation as it paralyzed their lungs.”

This really upsets me, how did they not figure this out before.  Does anyone know if they have to do autopsies on the prisoners after they are killed?  If they do then they must hae known for years that this is the real cause of death not just leathal inejction.  I feel that when someone is sentenced to death the courts say it is a painless injection and they die peacfully, well this obviously is not the case and something needs to change.  We have no right to make these people suffer, it’s not our duty.  Yes put them in jail but you cant make them suffer.

Inspired by our class comment, I thought that I could write about the wikkispace entry about it.  There seems to be all the upto-date information,  the article says, “[t]he perpetrator of at least 30 of the 32 killings^[9] has been identified by authorities as Cho Seung-hui a South Korean national and 4th year English major at Virginia Tech.^“

^{Here are some disturbing facts about the shooter, “The shooter has been identified as 23-year old Cho Seung-hui, a South Korean living in the US as a residnt alien. He was an undergraduate student in his senior year, majoring in English. Law enforcement reported that he killed himself inside Norris Hall by a shot to the head. Officials believe he used a 9 mm glock and a 22 caliber walther p-22 handgun. One of the guns was used in both incidents. An official added that Cho was “heavily armed and wearing a vest.” Cho was a student at the school and lived in one of the dormitories. Sources also state that Cho was carrying a “disturbing note.” A student speaking to Times Now said that the first gunshots were heard when classes were in progress. “We heard about thirty gunshots in the morning. The gunman appeared to be Asian and was looking for his girlfriend,” the student said.However, a relationship between any of the victims and the shooter has not yet been established. According to the official announcement from Virginia Tech, Cho Seung-hui was “South Korean native in the U.S. as a resident alien with a residence established in Centreville, Virginia, was living on campus in Harper Residence Hall”“}

All of these facts are very interesting and if you check now I am sure they will have even more information.  We all can just be thanful that this did not happen in our college ommunity.

The headline of the article read, “Will Global Warming threaten national security” and I knew that this was an article for me.  The article tells readers that there is going to be an investigation into Global Warming and see if it will affect our National Security.  An excerpt reads; “The bill’s debut is well timed. First, it comes just before the release of a big report on the expected impacts of global warming from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Officially unveiled on April 6, the report paints a sobering picture of the increased famine, drought, heat waves, fires, storms and infectious-disease outbreaks that we can expect to riddle the globe, particularly in the world’s poorest nations, if current warming trends aren’t reversed. Second, it comes just as Britain has scheduled an April 17 meeting of the U.N. Security Council to discuss potential security threats posed by climate change — the first time that body will consider the issue. “

 I feel if the bill is passed it will really push efforts to help stop global warming because sceintists are reporting that pretty soon it’s going to be too late to turn around our world’s health.  I feel confident that we will discover that global warming will have a negative affect on national security but this may be just what we need to start actions towards a healthier world.

I think this is a good idea, what do you think?

Inspired by today’s class reading I wanted to research more about Slam Poetry.  I really liked it and I think it’s a fun new twist on a dying out writing phase.  Wikkipedia defines Slam Poetry as “a postmodern performance poetry, a form of spoken word performed at a competitive poetry event, called a “slam”, at which poets perform their own poems (or, in rare cases, those of others) that are “judged” on a numeric scale by randomly picked members of the audience.  Something else that I enjoyes about wikkipedia’s definition is that “One of the goals of slam poetry is to challenge the authority of anyone who claims to know absolutely what literary quality is.”  This is what I like about it so much.  The satire tone throughout it all.  I have this new obsession with searching the web to find all slam poetry on all different topics of issues.