Archive for June 8th, 2010

Statesman Eye for the Death Row Guy

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

(Hattip to BlogHouston, where “Chron Eye for the Death Row Killer Guy” is a recurring feature.)

The Statesman seems to have embarked on a pro-David Lee Powell campaign, in advance of Mr. Powell’s scheduled execution on June 15th.

Yesterday, we were treated to a long article about Powell, his desire to live, and whether his execution had “been robbed of its meaning and purpose” after 32 years.

Today, we’re treated to an editorial stating that life without parole would be a fair punishment for Mr. Powell, since, after all, he hasn’t repeated his crimes and has been a model citizen on Death Row for the past 32 years.

Now, why did it take 32 years to get to this point? Well, part of the reason is that Mr. Powell has appealed his conviction twice, and was granted new trials in 1991 and 1999.

And what did Mr. Powell do to justify the death penalty? He killed a cop, Officer Ralph A. Ablanedo. Specifically, he gunned Officer Ablanedo down with an AK-47. (This was in 1978; I’m not sure if, when the paper refers to an “AK-47”, they mean a real AK-47, or one of these AK-47s. However, the APD site refers to a “fully automatic AK-47”, so I’ll give the paper the benefit of the doubt on this one.)

In addition…

Powell opened fire on a second officer when he was stopped a short time later, and also tossed a hand grenade, which failed to explode.

There does not seem to be any legitimate question about Powell’s guilt. The whole thrust of the Statesman‘s argument is that Powell’s successfully fought a delaying action for 32 years; and now that he’s managed to delay this long, we shouldn’t execute him because too much time has passed since the crime.

I’m not a blind supporter of the death penalty. I believe there are problems with it (and, at some point, I’d like to do a longer post about that). But Powell is not the poster child for injustice that the Statesman is making him out to be.

I have no joke here, I just like saying…

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

…”Baldenfreude”.

The NYT has at least two things going for it:

  1. The “Time Topics” blog.
  2. The ability for readers to get word definitions by double-clicking on a word within an article.

Put those things together, and what do you get? A list of 50 words most looked up by NYT readers.

Number one on the list? “inchoate”. “baldenfreude”, which is actually a MoDo coinage, comes in at #6. “Kristallnacht” ranks 13th. Heretically, “Manichean” comes in at #28.

The takeaway from this?

Still, we should remember that this is journalism, not philology.