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Synthesis & Synchronicity 034
[Visit Who Is Joseph Teller?]
Synthesis & Synchronicity 034
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In A Strange Land: Life took another left turn at the end of this week which I am trying to deal with.
My annual 39th Birthday was on the 30th of Oct., another reminder of the passage of chronological time (I decided a while ago that, like Jack Benny, I would stop at 39 since 3*13 is a sufficiently weird point to stop watching the clock). Then came Halloween and the universe decided it would play a trick on the residents of our building that would have lasting effects.
As many of you know, we're experiencing the Basement of Doom project on our condo building. On Halloween this reached its latest and most terrifying attack to date - the sewer line for the entire building decided to give up the ghost and collapse, dumping its contents into the watery mudpit that our basement has become at the hands of our contractor. This means we had to stop using the drains.... no showers, no washing dishes, no using the toilet etc as it would all add to the mess in the basement. And no chance of anything being done about it before monday at the earliest (as one needs a permit from the city, and the city department for such closed down by noon because of Halloween).
One can't live in a building where the sewage is filling up the basement.... we have been exiled from home to a room at the MIT Hotel for the interrium while we attempt to get workmen to fix the 25 feet of pipe that needs to be replaced, get all the proper permits, tear up the sidewalk with jackhammers & a back hoe, remove all the sewage and somehow clean out the mess, the smell and the health risks involved.
The other residents have also had to take refuge in various places away from their home.... and we have no real time estimate on how long all this will be going on.
So, I'm sitting in a fairly fancy modern hotel, using a T-1 line for the first time in my life to communicate with the net, but cut off from my library of reference materials etc. Our roleplaying game has been canceled (at least for this weekend, more if the situation takes longer) and I and the other owner are taking turns going back to the house on various days to deal with plumbers, contractors etc.
Our lives are disrupted.... and this is of course all something that the contractor should have realized was happening before it gave way, according to the plumber I spoke with two days ago (he was in the building to reconnect our furnace, which had had the pipes cut by the construction guys for no apparent reason and had left us without heat as previously noted).
I spent yesterday morning and afternoon dealing with logistics instead of a delayed birthday celebration, and keeled over to bed in the evening after a quick dinner with sore feet, painful back and just plain exhaustion and a state of shell shock. I'm one of those folks who run into a crisis, deal with it, and then after the worst has occured collapse into a bit of a nervous wreck. It's better than panicing during the crisis, but it's a survival trait that fails when its a problem that lasts more than 24 hours.
So, bear with me as I recover from all this over the next week, if you please.
Micahel Moore : I've listed the latest Michael Moore book in the Luggage & Links section. I've been struggling thru this book since the day it became available
at the local bookstores. It's not that he can't write, or cannot write eloquently. The problem is that the book, like his last one, is downright painful to my psyche to read.
It shows the obvious truths, the one's I've known about all along or discovered along the way rather quickly after they've been exposed outside of the mainstream press.
Of course, it's easier, since I live in Cambridge, and can access things here that aren't available in a number of other places in the coutry. Living in a city that is more political than most, with a wide range of radical groups outside the mainstream means that you hear a lot more things. And there are a lot of folks around here, which you can bump into at resteraunts, cafes and other places talking with each other or on cell phones about things that you won't see on the tv. Add in the internet, being on some of the more unusual mailing lists and visiting foreign newspaper and magazine sites and it becomes easier to see the big picture.
Pretty much that is what Michael Moore is talking about, in his own semi-humorous and confrontational manner. The Government lies, coverups, stupidities and just plain bad ideas and how they backfire regularly to catch not the politicians but the governed in the middle of the mess. It's all well documented, well organized and very readable. And it hurts to read, as it's obvious that the individual is becoming powerless to stop what is going on.
I support his effort, which is why I made sure to get the book asap. But I just can't read it easily, as it hurts too much. I guess that's better than being in denial, or jumping in glee to the Republican propaganda effort, or becoming completely apathetic and numb, but it's not good for my health. All I can hope for is that it gets the right people stirred up enough and this corrupt collection of politicians and their cronies out of office before they totally destroy whats left of the country (and possibly the world).
To some extent this also strikes me as connecting in to the theme of this particular journal entry. The United States doesn't feel like my country anymore, it doesn't even feel like the country I was born into. It feels like some strange alien warped version in a novel somewhere, and I keep looking for the protagonist to show up and fix everything the way it should be. With each day the situation keeps getting worse... maybe my age is showing. I'm not an idealist, I've never been a patriot (growing up during the Vietnam War eliminated any potential for that) but I expected that the future would get better. That somehow people would change, become more intelligent and tolerant and reasonable. Instead they become more hot headed, greedy, self-centered and uncaring about anything except their own profit and power.
From: "Greg Downing"
I thought about addressing this on my blog, but it seemed to me that since you've done me the honor of commenting on my site, that I should do the same for you. Though it's up to you if you post the email on the site.
I find your views on the death penalty interesting, but also confusing as you seem to be saying many things, and it's not clear to me what your ultimate point is. On the one hand, you seem to be speaking out against capital punishment because of the flaws in the judicial system, *and* that the government overuses it anyway from a zealous desire of vengeance.
However, you also say (or at least imply) that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment. And I guess I just don't understand that. In certain cases, I might consider being put to death cruel or unusual, but only if the manner of death is cruel an unusual. In most cases, they've so sterilzed the means of death that might almost be considered humane. We're not draw and quartering people any more, or burning them at the stake, or boiling them in oil. We're not even hanging people any more. And although it could be argued that there is no good way to die, there are more cruel and unusual ones than lethal injection or the gas chamber.
From a certain perspective, at least in my opinion, there are some people that are so heinous, so evil, or so sociopathic, that we cannot allow them to exist in our society. To do so is an affront to the memory of the dead. Would I advocate the death penalty? Maybe. It depends on the circumstances. Would I advocate the death penalty in the case you were almost called to duty for? Without knowing details, I wouldn't know. But, if the families of the victims didn't want it...well, I'm not sure I could nay say them.
But, thinking about the time we've spent gaming, I try to remember how any of your characters have felt about killing. I do remember that we've killed in self-defense without remorse, and also that we've granted mercy to people who were intent on killing us (most recently, the people that ambused us in the Ironclaw game) However, I don't recall if you've ever advocated killing someone not as a result of self-defense, and also wonder if you feel differently about it in gaming, or if the crux of your argument against capital punishment is more oriented towards the 'government controlled' aspect of it.
I certainly have had characters who've had differences of opinion on killing. It's a question Holmes struggled with, turmoil that threatened his sanity. Jax has no problem offering mercy, but there are folks he would have no qualms about killing in cold blood. Martin is so innocent, killing is not in his nature. For my Kalidescope character, who's name I'm forgetting, it's not a case of innocence, but more that he's just capable of that kind of violence. Marcus would probably have more of a problem with putting someone into a coma than killing, and Jack...well, his comments about revenge revealed something about his thoughts on killing, didn't they? Not to mention his background.
You can reprint any part of this you'd like, along with any response. I am curious on hearing you expound more on the subject.
-Greg
First Off, thanks for the response and your willingness to let me share it with the other readers and use it as a springboard for discussion.
It is always important to understand that my own personal points of view are not necessarily reflected in the characters I portray in roleplaying games. Portraying folks with very different personalities, ethics, morals and ideals is one of the many ways I experiment with characters. Other ways are doing things like playing characters who have grown up in very different circumstances, or who have a different gender than my own, or who have very different ideas about religion, sexuality, universal viewpoints or goals in their lives. This is always even more likely when I am GMing, since a GM must be able to handle a wide range of antagonists, support characters, innocent bystanders and meddling types who get in the way of the protagonists (the PCs).
I will say that most player characters that I have portrayed do have a tendency to be likely to consider killing when they are dealing with a threat to their own lives or that of peple close to them. Once in a while I have played characters who have had to choose between killing and saving the world, but these are rare circumstances. I don't play assasins, folks who wantonly go out with an intent to kill, or who choose to use lethal force first in a situation. (I have had one character that went to great effort to build a reputation as a killer, in a GURPS game, but it was just that, reputation, and not reality.)
In real life, I have always been slow to use physical force, never mind lethal force. I've worked in security and been in risky situations where others were not as restrained as I am in such things. I've had to dodge crossbow bolts, wrestle knives away from people, bluff a drunk who was beating on his girlfriend into thinking I had a gun to back off, taken my share of punches etc. It's not like I haven't experienced violent situations close up. I don't particularly care for them, and I don't particularly go out look for them.
I do believe in the right of self defense when facing violent situations. I also believe that there are such occurances where Lethal force might be necessary, and have a certain amount of understanding and sympathy for policemen on the job etc. In the right circumstance, with myself or someone I care about dearly facing certain death if I didn't strike
someone with a lethal attack, I would likely do so and rapidly.
This does not mean that I support a government committing premedatated murder of an individual.
Governments are not held to a strict enough code of ethics, they perform capital punishment as a means to inflict fear and control over a populance, not necessarily to produce justice.
Mercy is not a government concept. Mercy is a human concept. Although a government may be made up of humans, not all humans that make up a government do so for the good of humanity in general. I lack trust in governments to act humanely, or in all people to do so.
My note regarding Cruel and Unusual punishment in my previous journal/column entry is the usage of the terminology of the court which struck down capital punishment in Massachusetts many long years ago. Despite what the federal government tells you, executions are not without cruelty. Electricution and Gas Chambers are actually quite painful and can be quite slow, as has been reported by many witnesses to such over the years. Lethal Injection isn't much better. Nearly every major European country has eliminated the Death Penalty from their legal system for the exact same reasons.
Additionally, if the state makes a mistake and kills an innocent person, there is no way of undoing what has been done. The number of innocent or wrongly accused people that have ended up in death row in the states of this country that have capital punishment is surprisingly high. The American Legal system is supposed to be based on the ideal that it is better to let a hundred guilty men go free than to kill or punish one innocent man in error. The only way this can be done, in regards to the death penalty, is to remove it. Otherwise doubt and the possibility of killing an innocent will always exist.
Thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings.....
Death Penalties Etc.
I recently Got An Email From a friend, fellow Western Ave Irregular, and the voice behind the Rantmaster website, about my recent (S&S 33) column that I'd like to share with the readers and then respond to. So, with out further fanfare:
To:
Cc:
Subject: S+S #33
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 07:38:23 -0500
Legal Notice:
Synthesis & Synchronicity is the meanderings of the mind of Joseph Teller and may not reflect the reality of your own personal universe. Contents are Copyright 2003 by Joseph Teller and anyone who wants to reproduce it in any way or fashion must request permission (although linkage to these is granted to any and all websites, mailing lists and newsgroups, their operators, posters and users if so desired). Unless, of course, otherwise noted within the text of the articles involved. Synthesis & Sychronicity is distributed by Naughty Faerie Productions.
