Conditioning Us to Martial Law? New Normal?

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“Contractors” at Boston Marathon Stood Near Bomb, Left Before Detonation

Flashback: When Chechen Terrorists Were Framed

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Great Missouri Flood of 2011

Taken on 6/20/11 by Larry Geiger

Misc MO River Flood 2011



Fort Pierre



North of the Spillway, Above the Dam East of West Shore Boat Ramp

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Should Americans Witness all Executions?

Undoubtedly, Eddie Adams’ image of a South Vietnamese officer executing a captured Viet Cong guerrilla in 1968 (pictured left) stands out as one of the most disturbing photographs to emerge from the Vietnam War.

This photograph, published on the front page of the New York Times, proved to be so powerful that it provided the fuel needed to fire up the Vietnam protest movement, despite the fact that the man being executed had killed 12 people that same morning.
It didn't matter, America was still shocked and horrified by this photograph of an execution.

Obviously, when confronted with the in-your-face reality of execution, Americans found something dehumanizing or inhumane about killing human beings deliberately.

Why then, considering capital punishment does not deter crime and is far more expensive, not to mention the discriminatory component and the arbitrariness of its application, do we overwhelmingly support the death penalty?

Unfortunately, the same photograph, if shown today, would probably not have the same impact as it did 40-years ago. The excessive materialism that pervades our culture today makes it much too easy to distract ourselves from what we don't want to see.

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Images of the Iranian Uprising

"I received this from an anonymous Iranian student: “I will participate in the demonstrations tomorrow. Maybe they will turn violent. Maybe I will be one of the people who is going to be killed. I’m listening to all my favorite music. I even want to dance to a few songs. I always wanted to have very narrow eyebrows. Yes, maybe I will go to the salon before I go tomorrow!”

And she concludes: “I wrote these random sentences for the next generation so that they know we were not just emotional under peer pressure. So they know that we did everything we could to create a better future for them. So they know that our ancestors surrendered to Arabs and Mongols but did not surrender to despotism. This note is dedicated to tomorrow’s children.”

I bow my head to the youth of Iran, the youth that is open-eyed, bold and far more numerous than the near-beardless vigilantes. One such youth was Neda, whose music teacher, Hamid Panahi, was at her side when she died. I asked Panahi if she said anything after the bullet struck. “Yes,” he told me, “She said, ‘Mr. Panahi, I burnt.’"

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