So lets see, long time since last update. Lets go through things:

- I was dropped from my materials 2 class for not being a graduating senior, after this I enrolled in a biochemistry class only to find out that they again had room in the materials class. I then dropped biochem and got back into materials after missing a week of lectures during the particle in a box derivation (long and intense but interesting). Teacher was worried I wouldn't catch up so I met with him after work one day to discuss the classes I missed, then proceeded to take a quiz with the rest of the class over the lectures. I got a 9.5/10 and class average was an 8. Needless to say the teacher is no longer worried about my catching up.

- Took a unit ops quiz last saturday and felt I did fairly well. Turns out I got a 76, sounds terrible but given the class average of a 65 that makes my grade a high B+ low A- according to him. He said I'm in a good position to do well in the class so I just need to keep up with that and it will be good.

- I have a Bio Physical chemistry test monday, this one I am a bit more worried about because I'm not entirely sure what he is going to test over. Hopefully significant studying over the weekend will get me through it well.

- First HDFS test tomorrow. Its HDFS, I'm not worried. I did have to drive out to katy to see my prof so I could get the petition in for honors credit before the deadline. This is when I made a landspeed record to katy and back in rush hour traffic.

- Finished a bunch of projects at work and am finally caught up with everything there, its a nice feeling to have accomplished alot lately. This part does deserve special attention though: My boss has decided that he wants to take one of my projects that I worked on entirely by myself and submit it for a patent. Talk about badassedness. I can't wait to see what happens with this.

- Valentines day spent at class then eating sushi, yes sushi. I know, normally I'm just a meat and potatoes guy but I am trying to broaden my horizons just a little bit at least.

Lets see what else....got my car accident stuff mostly taken care of, thats always good. As the rest of you probably know tuitions due next week, joy of joys. Thats about it really, can't wait til frisbee tomorrow night its been like a whole 1.5 weeks since I have played last, I'm going into a bit of withdrawl. =( sad I know.

Couple weeks ago or so went to go see eric the red play at the vintage bar, both he and the bar are highly recommended by me, great music good beer good friends always = good time.

I cleaned my room, yes this is boring but its nice and liveable now, organized sorta plain but I like it again. Fishes are alive and well, ed still rules. Coolaid is good, led zepplin is awesome and I can't wait for next monday night = tests over for a week or two!!!!

I guess thats about it. Have a good one

Song of the moment:

Keep on rockin' in the free world - Pearl Jam cover with Neil Young

I think the word Frustration best describes the mood of things concerning me for the past while. And no its not one particular person or event it just seems as though all things have come to this miserable anticlimatic point and I'm left screaming for something, anything to happen.

Hypocrisy, its everywhere you look including the motivations of the author. I went to work today, fully expecting nothing out of the norm, and yet I feel much more jaded towards the human situation.

Of course none of this is a separate event from the rest of the world and ultimately stems from the recent Stanley “Tookie” Williams execution. I show up to work, walk up to the control room as normal and observe what’s going on in the plant. A coworker, who looks to cause disturbances, enters and sits down quietly. It doesn’t take long, he eventually gets around to the first of his several issues of the day. He discusses and issue mainly irrelevant to me, criticizing another coworker whom I have had no problems dealing with, finding support among the other coworkers present. This eventually spreads into crime and punishment.

He cites a few examples of how foreign countries don’t deal with crime and punishment as lightly as America. His primary example was that of Russian during wartime, the Russians would give a murderer a trial and if found guilty would be executed as he or she left the court. He said this “leaves no room for appeals” and moves on to American cases. He brings up Jeffery Dahmer saying “that mother fucker used our air for too long”, referring to the fact that Dahmer was on death row for several years before being executed, thus using tax payer money to maintain his status in jail. Both of these examples drew much support from my fellow coworkers, unwilling to say anything other than “that fucker”, or “ ‘bout fucking time.” While on his soapbox, he reaches his arguments climax with Tookie.

Brings up how the man “started the Crips”, killed four people and was on death row for 25 years. To which a member of the audience retorts “I can’t believe I paid for him for that long.” After sensing a bit of support he goes on to say how lethal injection is too nice and that he deserved something with much more pain involved. Again the audience chimes in saying forget just murderers lets give anyone who commits a violent crime something painful as punishment, “guy who rapes a girl should have his balls cut off.” To this the originator responds “shit, tie him up and I’ll put a bullet in ‘em” This is where I realized just how much democracy is destined to fail.

There are several points that I take issue with:

- “leaves no room for appeals”
- “that mother fucker used our air for too long”
- The reasons surround Tookies conviction
- “I can’t believe I paid for him for that long”
- Needing more pain in punishment
- “Guy who rapes a girl should have his balls cut off”
- “shit, tie him up and I’ll put a bullet in ‘em”

The first “leaves no room for appeals” is a fundamental denial of rights as a human being. I realize that the argument, “what about the rights of the victim, where were they were raped/murdered?” is valid but that does not mean no further examination should be placed into the crime and the convicted felon needs to be executed immediately. No room for appeals implies a completely fair and just trial in this justice system. If this justice system were perfect appeals would be unnecessary I agree. But it is not; this has been demonstrated time and time again. To claim that a convicted felon does not have the right to appeal is most certainly a non-democratic ideal. A man is to be convicted beyond a shadow of a doubt and society should have no doubt behind his guilt or innocence. When the state kills a person the people kill that person. When your governor decides to grant or not to grant clemency he is performing the will of the people, if you do not agree with it, if you believe there is proof one way or another it is your duty to this democracy to present it. To remain silent is to let fear and violence takes precedence over the fundamentals of this country.

Next “that mother fucker used our air for too long” point, this argument is ridiculous on the surface for no other reason than the oxygen-carbon dioxide cycle. Humans make CO2 from O2 plants make O2 from CO2. There is no destruction of oxygen here, not to mention N2 doesn’t get used. Ok so ignoring the specifics, looking to the broader issue of resource consumption by inmates and members of death row. The argument implies that people on death row consume resources that could be of better use to law abiding citizens and thus execute them quicker and help society. This comes back to the idea of speeding up the justice process and most likely circumventing the court of appeals. Circumventing the court of appeals process I have already addressed, to speed up the justice process also comes back to the idea of beyond a shadow of a doubt. If the jury can be convinced in a quicker amount of time that the man is guilty then yes, he will find his way to jail faster. If appeals can be denied or granted such that the people are satisfied quicker then the justice process will be sped along. Until these necessities of democratic justice are fulfilled it is not possible to deny a person food, water, shelter, health care with out being cruel or unusual. These things are written into our foundations of this country and to deny that it is true is an assault on American democracy.

The next issue, with the reasons surrounding Tookie’s conviction there are many documented reasons that his trial may not have been a just trial. This includes an all white jury where the prosecuting attorney went out of his way to exclude any colored persons from gaining a seat, the prosecuting attorney who made several comments with racial overtones towards Tookie and parts of the city, the star witnesses were all on trial for crimes associated with the gang and the events surrounding that night but none of them served jail time, one of these people who testified was found to have Tookie’s case file and other information pertaining to his case (all confidential and protected) in his cell before his testimony. The evidence was circumstantial at best, including the murder weapon whom did not belong to him and was found in someone else’s house (also a person brought up on crimes but testified against him). These reasons leave a “shadow of a doubt” in my mind as to whether or not he got a fair trial. This does not mean that he should be set free, this does not mean that he needs a retrial but I believe a stay of execution or a granting of clemency is reasonable based on this alone.

The next comment about “I can’t believe I paid for him for that long” is about as offensive as it comes. God forbid that in a country where you are expected to pay taxes for such SERVICES (yes prisons are services) that you end up giving money towards to maintenance of basic human rights while imprisoned. Something has got to give here, if you don’t want to spend as much money in taxes on prisons, change the crimes that are punishable by prison time (thank you Drug war), decide that democracy isn’t really what you want and allow for a fascist justice system to take over (disagree and die), or suck it up and realize that for this democracy you are giving money to maintain prisons both for those men who rape little girls and for those kids caught with a little too much pot. Wake up and realize what’s going on before you make a comment pertaining to such a broad based service such as the prisons.

And next, according to my coworkers we need more pain in punishment. Yes please lets go back to the dark ages of torture and pain so that we can pretend that this serves a purpose. Again CRUEL AND UNUSUAL punishment is not allowed in this countries justice system, don’t like it? You’re in the wrong century. This country is founded on the rights of the people and even though felons may not have respected this right to live safely the government is not able to impose punishment beyond the realm of separation and revocation of privileges.

“Guy who rapes a girl should have his balls cut off”, yes this sounds brilliant in theory, his complete disregard for her rights should result in the most painful of all things we can imagine him to suffer. But again, this follows the same line of reasoning as more pain in punishments. America is founded on a principal of punishment that is neither cruel nor unusual and until all Americans find this punishment acceptable it will remain cruel and usual. A stronger sentence may be in order but for this case it is not allowable to permit a punishment such as this. Given the circumstances and absolute proof of this I would agree he should suffer, and this is my hypocrisy but alas I understand why it cannot be.

Finally “shit, tie him up and I’ll put a bullet in ‘em”, and this makes you a hero somehow? Because you administered absolute and just punishment? You are able to claim that you are the proper person in the proper position to kill another man and call it just, especially when you weren’t on the jury, you didn’t witness the crime and yet you’re the person to kill the felon? Well fine then, this is what I propose, you and him can have your time, get in your chamber together and if you walk out justice has been served, if he is left he can have life in prison. Ignore the cruel and unusual thing for a bit, ignore the process of law and order in this country, ignore everything about rights and the concept of right and wrong. After you kill him, you can stand in front of a panel of peers, and claim that it was right and you better pray that your trial doesn’t suffer the same misfortunes that most do. Renegade justice is good, but only for you, if you are willing to put your will up for examination of the people then so be it, but if I recall correctly that’s probably the same line of thinking that the person you just killed had.

There I’m done.

So I think I know why movies like Boondock Saints and Pulp Fiction appeal to me so much. Ok for you smartasses yes they have guns, and bad ass fights but beyond that there is more.

I find that I connect with the main characters well. In each case they know what is right and wrong, they know the things they do is wrong and yet they maintain themselves in a perpetual state of repentence. True I am not killing any one, least not to my knowledge, but I find myself doing things I know are wrong, and yet trying to maintain some sort of dignity about it. Perhaps its dillusional or perhaps its resignation, resignation to the idea that I am unable to do whats right but I have no need to lower myself to common trash.

But whats it worth, if I get lucky I'll take over enough of the world and piss off enough people to be killed quickly in my sleep.

So I need some suggestions from you guys. I am looking for books to read, would actually like to do something mentally constructive (I think the alchohol killed off the weak brain cells) so I am looking for suggestions.

Genres I look for:

Fantasy (Wheel of Time series)
Horror (Anne Rice books)
Philosophy typish stuff, this is the most broad but give all ideas

And of course anything else you guys have to suggest I would love to consider.

Thanks for the help

~Overlord