
Today’s Live Wire: Quick Links
- State-Sponsored Murder
- Ohio’s DeWine’s Unspeakable Cruelty
- Prison Population Declines for 3rd Straight Year
- Jews vs. Jaws
- Divided We Stand
- When You Just Can’t Keep From Laughing
- Chasing Beirut’s Ghosts
- Exotic Skins: Your Revolting Video of the Day
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- Invitation to an Execution
- Exonerated Death Row Inmates Tell Flagler Beach Group of an Enduring Florida Injustice
- Death Penalty Archives
Ohio’s Attorney General DeWine’s Unspeakable Cruelty
From Think Progress: “John Arthur is dying. He is in the terminal stages of Lou Gehrig’s disease and has entered hospice care. Arthur is also gay, and in a 20 year relationship with a man named Jim Obergefell. Because the couple’s home state of Ohio will not allow them to marry, Arthur and Obergefell recently flew to Maryland together and were legally married on the tarmac — just weeks after the Supreme Court’s landmark marriage equality decision in United States v. Windsor. Arthur was unable to rise from his hospice bed. In his final days, Arthur wants to honor his commitment to his husband. He wants his own death certificate to list Obergefell as his “surviving spouse.” And he wants to die knowing that his partner of 20 years can someday be buried next to him in a family plot bound by a directive that only permits his lawfully wedded spouse to be interred alongside him. And, on Monday, a federal judge ruled that Arthur should indeed have the dignity of dying alongside a man that Ohio will recognize as his husband. And now, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine (R) wants to take that dignity away from Mr. Arthur. The day after a judge issued a temporary restraining order requiring Ohio to list Arthur’s husband as his “surviving spouse” on his death certificate, DeWine announced that he would appeal this decision and try to strip a dying man of his final wish. There are marriage equality cases with sweeping national implications. This is not one of them. The judge’s order is limited exclusively to Arthur and Obergefell. […] There is a common refrain among marriage equality’s opponents that discrimination is necessary to remove some kind of “threat” equality poses to straight couples’ marriages. This case is a put up or shut up moment for these voices. Who, exactly, will divorce because Ohio will acknowledge one gay couple’s marriage? What strife will result when Obergefell someday is laid to rest next to Arthur? Where is the wife that will leave her husband because Arthur died alongside his? Who does DeWine think he is serving by filing this appeal?” The full story.
See Also:
- In Biggest Victory for Gay Rights Yet, Supreme Court Declares Marriage Act Unconstitutional
- If You’re Gay, Would Like to Legally Marry and Are Ready to Sue, Equality Florida Wants You
- Obama’s Come to Jesus Moment on Gay Marriage: More Buchanan Than Lincoln
Prison Population Declines for 3rd Straight Year
From the Times: “[T]ightened state budgets, plummeting crime rates, changes in sentencing laws and shifts in public opinion have combined to reverse the trend. Experts on prison policy said that the continuing decline appears to be more than a random fluctuation. “A year or even two years is a blip and we shouldn’t jump to conclusions, but three years starts to look like a trend,” said Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit research group based in Washington. But he said that the rate of inmates incarcerated in the United States continued to be “dramatically higher” than in other countries and that the changes so far were “relatively modest compared to the scale of the problem.” Most observers agree that the recession has played a role in shrinking prison populations. In 2011 and 2012, at least 17 states closed or were considering closing prisons partly for budgetary reasons, representing a reduction of 28,525 beds, according to a report by the Sentencing Project published last year.” The full story.
The full report:
Prison Population Report, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2012
See Also:
- Exonerated Death Row Inmates Tell Flagler Beach Group of an Enduring Florida Injustice
- Duping Court Ruling, Florida Replacing Life Juvenile Sentencing With 50-Year Minimum
- Prisons and Jails Archive
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When You Just Can’t Keep From laughing
Saturday Night Live cast members just can’t keep it in:
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This is a recurring scene in Jaber’s fiction: a character stops in front of one of Beirut’s modern buildings and tries to remember what used to stand there. (Classical poetics in Arabic calls this scene the nasib: a nomad-poet halts at an abandoned desert campsite and, while figuratively sifting the ashes through his fingers, recalls the good times he once had there.) The Mehlis Report is punctuated by Saman Yarid’s walks through the downtown district of Beirut and the neighborhood of Achrafiya, where he lives. These excursions are diagrammed with an exhaustive and occasionally exhausting realism. Abu-Zeid notes in an interview that translating the novel meant spending a great deal of time with Beirut street maps. Even the conversations between Yarid and his mistresses often circle back to local geography, as the couples try to remember buildings, architects, and landmarks that no longer exist. “The restaurants change their names with each passing season,” Yarid grouses to himself on one of his walks. “It’s not good. You lose your bearings that way. They ought to carve the old names above the doors.”
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Exotic Skins: Your Revolting Video of the Day
The devil really does wear Prada: Joaquin Phoenix on the exotic-skins industry, brought to you of course by Peta, which writes: “With so many affordable, high-quality, cruelty-free alternatives available, there is no reason that anyone should be wearing someone else’s skin. Overstock.com, H&M, and Nike have already made the compassionate decision to no longer sell exotic skin, sending a strong message to other retailers and designers as well as the hunters and poachers who profit off the suffering caused by this violent industry.” Watch:
See Also:
- 52-Year-Old St. Johns Sexual Predator Arrested on Bestiality Charge After Suspected Rape of a Dog
- Angel Roman, Guilty of Brutalizing Kittens, Sentenced to Treatment, Not Prison
- The Peta Files
johnny taxpayer says
Mike Dewine is Ohio Attorney General not Govenor
[Thanks for the correction.–FL]