Silly Little Country

Credit to the BBC and Matt Frei

What seemed to start as a ritual performance on capital punishment (disclaimer: I think I generally oppose it but am not really sure - as I don't think we have it in Canada I don't really have to think about it much) got some nuance.

The report stated with what struck me as mischief - Matt pointing out that capital punishment occurs routinely in the US, but that the North Carolina execution which was the 1000th since the resumption of the penalty in the US had engendered vigils. Then he interviewed one of those on the vigil - but had he not just deligitimized this poor guy? I thought so.

Then on to San Quentin and I assumed ah yes, the Nobel Peace Prize gorp! But not quite - Matt did say in passing that Tookie Williams had been engaged in years of lobbying against gang violence (pardon my skepticism)

No menton of the Nobel Peace Prize. (Just do a Google search to know how inane this story is.) But what did Matt Frei do next?? Glory be, he interviewed the stepmother of one of the victims! (Your Google search will tell you a witness said this lovely lad killed his victims because it gave him pleasure to kill whites - yeah - that makes me feel defensive.) The stepmother was pretty unrepentant.

So maybe this is a sucker punch. The Beeb wants Arnie to let the execution happen, and will then go bonkers over what a savage Arnie is (forgetting how we have purged one truly documented savage in the process)?

Let's wait and see. All I know is, Matt got me wondering.

posted by Alan Adamson @ 6:54 PM