Alabama

9 XI 2023: Crimson Tide to drown inmate

Headline on CNN: Alabama sets date for execution of a death row inmate by nitrogen gas, a method never used in any state. Alabama has repeatedly screwed up its attempts to execute prisoners by lethal injection. The victim of the last botched execution, Kenneth Eugene Smith, requested to be executed with nitrogen gas. This is, as Smith’s lawyer described it, “an experimental, never-before-used method” for execution.

The article on CNN reports that according to the Death Penalty Information Center “Death by nitrogen hypoxia deprives the brain and body of oxygen,” and this is assumed to be a more humane, or, rather, a more reliable technique for execution. So Alabama, usually the most backward of former Confederate states, is now leading the way.

11 IX 2023: Let us alone (in our ignorance and poverty)

The Great State of Alabama, as George Wallace used to call it, is in rebellion against the Federal judiciary. The Republican legislators are insisting vigorously on their right to jerrymander and deprive black citizens of an effective vote. They along with Republican legislatures of other the states of the old Confederacy are among the most vociferous in asserting their rights (or, to approximate their pronunciations, their raats!).

I have been looking at a ranking of states according to real per capita personal income and guess which are the bottom ten: Oklahoma, Arkansas, Arizona, West Virginia, Kentucky, South Carolina, Idaho, Louisiana, Alabama, and, last and least, Mississippi.

We have here states of the Old South and the South’s Western colonies. These fools, as they cling desperately to the “old ways” and the old white supremacy are, as they say, circling the bowl.