Today should have been a very happy day in the Mother Parliament, Westminster. They were going to unveil the official portrait for former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher; and the ailing "Iron Lady" was going to be there for the ceremony and to be honoured by today's generation of politicians, perhaps for the last time as she continues to decline from dementia.
But that, as well as today's Prime Minister's Question Time, have both been called off -- owing to the death of the six year old disabled son of Conservative leader David Cameron. Ivan Cameron had cerebral palsy and epilepsy. I suspect the cancellations also have to do with the fact that the PM, Gordon Brown, lost a daughter himself (Jennifer, who was born prematurely and died less than two weeks later) and has a son with cystic fibrosis.
Of course, I offer my condolences. I don't know what it's like to have a kid, let alone a challenged kid, but I know families that do and every single day is a struggle.
Also in the news this morning, an airliner from Turkey crashed as it landed at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam. Breaking up into three pieces it's hard to imagine how anyone could walk away, but the reports are that most did -- about 130 of the 135 on board. This comes one day after Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, who with his co-pilot Jeffrey Skiles made that now famous landing in the Hudson River, told Congress that due to major cutbacks in salary and pensions, and inexperienced pilots getting hired after just 300 hours of flying time (Mr. Sullenberger needed 3000 when he got hired 30 years ago) the next time might not be so fortunate. Even more shocking is that the flight crew has had to moonlight on weekends on a second job just to make ends meet.
A pilot or flight attendant should not have to do that in my opinion. Nor have to give up his or her pension just because of high fuel and structural costs at the airlines.
Finally, a growing number of states are seeing the economics of a death penalty regime as simply just not adding up ... and they are actively considering doing the politically unthinkable, just getting rid of capital punishment all together. Frankly I think the moral argument against far outweighs the cost-benefit analysis but at least someone gets it. They did in New Jersey and now it looks like seven more states -- Colorado, Kansas, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire and New Mexico (a good mix of "red" and "blue" states) -- may be joining the abolitionist club.
In Rome, they have a custom of lighting up the Coliseum -- where the early Christians were fed to the lions -- in celebration of each time a country or sub-national jurisdiction gets rid of the death penalty. Wouldn't it be nice if all of the remaining retentionist states did so, so the famous landmark could shine for five weeks straight?
Vote for this post at Progressive Bloggers.
No comments:
Post a Comment