Go to a state’s death chamber.
Well, now don’t go and do anything that would get you SENT there, that’s for sure. But see if you can arrange a tour with a warden. I guess you’d have to have a good reason to go, so go get a criminal justice or a journalism degree first.
Ok, done yet? No? I’ll wait a few more years.
… twiddling thumbs…
Ok, now go see it.
Back yet? Good. Pretty messed up place, huh? So sterile. So antiseptic.
Oddly, Virginia’s has a pair of flip-flops underneath the gurney. Guess you don’t want the guy’s feet to get dirty before he dies.
I’ve been there. It is, as you imply, a fairly banal room. If it weren’t “sterile” though, you would be complaining about that. Contemporary sensibilities demand that death be as “dignified” as possible, which is why state executions are conducted in the way they are. However, I think your implied attack on capital punishment is not very effective, since you are attacking the aesthetics of it rather than the actual principle. You already know my opinion.
By: Ernesto Bolivar on June 24, 2008
at 5:36 am