Leading Off (10/15/09)
1. More than 500 students are left without completed driver’s education after four schools suddenly closed. I don’t see what the big deal is. The kids could merely learn to drive like I did: in a tractor attached to a grain cart.
2. I’ve been noticing the different burial grounds around town during this, the month of Halloween. I’ve even thought about taking a tour of some of these grounds. All that is to say that this article about people being taken after prepaying for their funeral arrangements caught my attention. Even though it’s a serious subject, I just couldn’t help but chuckle at this quote.
“I liken a prepaid funeral contract to a bear trap,” said Ed McHam, who teaches a Richland Community College course on funeral planning. “You want to ask a lot of questions before stepping into it. If you’re not careful, it can hurt you.”
I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure I don’t ever want to step into a bear trap. Even after I ask a lot of questions.
3. Talk about being haunted, the fire investigator yesterday accused Rick Perry of “unethical” behavior in the 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham. Perry called Willingham “a monster.” I’m not sure which one scares me most: uneducated drivers, touring cemeteries, or trying to justify this execution.
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The Willingham execution is more than I can stand to think about this morning. How such egregiously false evidence made it all the way through the appeals process without being overturned, ugh, it scares me and it turns my stomach.
Whoa. Stop the presses. There’s a college course on funeral planning? an entire COURSE? That’s almost as scary as Rick Perry standing by the decision to execute Willingham, in spite of all that science and voodoo. Or maybe just the science.
The latter, friend. The latter scares you the most.
Read Jessica Mitford’s The American Way of Death and you’ll realize the necessity of a course. Most people are unfortunately unaware of the games funeral “homes” play and wind up thousands of dollars in debt for funerals. Come to think of it, Mitford would have been all over Rick Perry and his cronies, too.
Huh, you know, i thought there was this whole thing with a trial, a jury and a judge. I didn’t realize Rick Perry had replaced all that and convicted this guy all by himself. Thanks for letting us know D!
I’ll take execution for no Perry re-election, Alex.
Doug – Huh, I thought due process included more than just trial, jury and judge. It also includes the reviews that occur after a trial. Case in point, the DNA releases occurring in Dallas county.
New technology made it possible to scrutinize the Willingham forensics. We can’t decide what information is relevant – it all has to be relevant for our system to work.