Something tells me this isn't really progress.

It would indeed potentially facilitate more executions.

might actually consider...oh, I dunno...NOT executing people?

I believe it is possible.

This is one of those things that's so fucking absurd it couldn't be made up.

By the Saudi "secular" (to say not insane) middle and upper classes, and ironically enough in the Gulf region there is a hyper-sensitivity to anything perceived primitive. And... that is pretty damn primitive. But despite this it has persisted as a concession to the insane elements of Saudi society.

He also said a large number of the people who turn out to witness the public executions are American and British expats.

Last edited Sun Mar 10, 2013, 06:35 PM - Edit history (1)

(Note, MacColl was basically the Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and also perhaps Bertolt Brecht combined of the British folk scene, particularly in the early years of the folk revival there in the 1950's).

In the book, MacColl recounts an incident that occurred when he was touring with Theatre Workshop(the radical theatre group he put together with his first wife, Joan Littlewood, and that toured the Labour areas of Britain presenting experimental, political theatre to working-class audience).

At a small inn where his troupe was staying in Wales(IIRC), he noticed a group of polite, normal-looking people at the inn that everyone else was shunning. Not understanding why these people were being shunned, he asked the innkeeper what was going on. The innkeeper informed him that the people being treated with disdain by everyone else in the inn were a group that traveled around the country to places where condemned inmates were being hanged. That was their hobby, of all things(nowadays, the Brits seem to have switched to trainspotting, but still...). The hangings weren't public, but they were trying to be near where the events were happening, which is ghoulish enough.

And there was the old U.S. "Wild West" tradition of public hangings becoming festive occasions in small towns where people often had little to entertain them.

Watching the Brit movie about the last hangman, hangings in Britain were not public in the '50's.

Am I wrong on this?

nt

Like the ghouls who have barbecues outside state prisons while somebody's getting the chair.

Why? Proximity to the frequent public executions in Canada lead to public disgust with the practice. 1837 MI became a State, and the only execution there was done by the feds in the 30's. Canada kept hanging people until 1962.
So the 'US tradition' is not exactly nation wide. 17 States have no death penalty and several of them predate the UK or Europe or Canada in abolition of that penalty by years, decades and in the case of MI by 120 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Barrett_%28Fenian%29

... James Henry Miller (25 January 1915 – 22 October 1989), better known by his stage name Ewan MacColl ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ewan_MacColl

So Ewan MacColl was only born about 50 years after the last public hanging over there

What they were doing was going to towns where a hanging was being held(privately), just to be close to the event.
That's bad enough, isn't it?

others have already made. As an opponent of the death penalty, I've tried to be aware of its history

Ghouls, of course, are still out there and get some coverage from time to time showing up at execution sites to hold pro-death demonstrations

and have one last hurrah with the beheadings. Then they can stop the practice.

You people can watch while I'm scrubbing these floors
And I'm scrubbin' the floors while you're gawking
Maybe once ya tip me and it makes ya feel swell
In this crummy Southern town
In this crummy old hotel
But you'll never guess to who you're talkin'.
No. You couldn't ever guess to who you're talkin'.

Then one night there's a scream in the night
And you'll wonder who could that have been
And you see me kinda grinnin' while I'm scrubbin'
And you say, "What's she got to grin?"
I'll tell you.

There's a ship
The Black Freighter
With a skull on it's masthead
Will be coming in

You gentlemen can say, "Hey gal, finish them floors!
Get upstairs! What's wrong with you! Earn your keep here!
You toss me your tips
And look out to the ships
But I'm counting your heads
As I'm making the beds
Cuz there's nobody gonna sleep here, tonight
Nobody's gonna sleep here
Nobody!
Nobody!

Then one night there's a scream in the night
And you say, "Who's that kicking up a row?"
And ya see me kinda starin' out the winda
And you say, "What's she got to stare at now?"
I'll tell ya.

There's a ship
The Black Freighter
Turns around in the harbor
Shootin' guns from her bow

Now
You gentlemen can wipe off that smile off your face
Cause every building in town is a flat one
This whole frickin' place will be down to the ground
Only this cheap hotel standing up safe and sound
And you yell, "Why do they spare that one?"
Yes.
That's what you say.
"Why do they spare that one?"

All the night through, through the noise and to-do
You wonder who is that person that lives up there?
And you see me stepping out in the morning
Looking nice with a ribbon in my hair

And the ship
The Black Freighter
Runs a flag up it's masthead
And a cheer rings the air

By noontime the dock
Is a-swarmin' with men
Comin' out from the ghostly freighter
They move in the shadows
Where no one can see
And they're chainin' up people
And they're bringin' em to me
Askin' me,
"Kill them NOW, or LATER?"
Askin' ME!
"Kill them now, or later?"

Noon by the clock
And so still at the dock
You can hear a foghorn miles away
And in that quiet of death
I'll say, "Right now.
Right now!"

Then they pile up the bodies
And I'll say,
"That'll learn ya!"

And the ship
The Black Freighter
Disappears out to sea
And
On
It
Is
Me

(this was the translation sung by Nina Simone).

Much better then being tucked into some hole where they force a needle into you and quickly forget you were even there.

state is going to be killing people, it shouldn't sanitize the bloody business.

They're joining the 19th. century .