Anyone who isn’t blind and deaf probably knows that we are in full election swing. There are yard signs, TV ads, campaign blogs and emails. It’s all around us. In this time, I’ve received a number of emails asking about TCASK endorsements for candidates, etc. As a 501(c)3 organization, of course, TCASK does not endorse candidates. And we don’t believe that the death penalty should become a partisan issue. We are about public education and organizing, demonstrating the inherent flaws of the capital punishment system, and finding common ground with as many people as possible.

But not everyone feels that way. Lots of bigger organizations do make candidate endorsements, donations, etc. Which brings me to the subject of today’s post. One email I got, from a Catholic friend of mine included the following:

I continue to get information from “pro-life” organizations on candidates who support the “pro-life” message – many even including voter guides (like this one)

http://www.tnrtl.org/news_center/TRL_PAC_2006_Endorsements.htm

It seems inconsistent to me that many of these same “pro-life” candidates are also “pro-death”, supporting capital punishment.

Now, while TCASK doesn’t endorse candidates, I find myself agreeing with the overall sentiment of this email. Some of the candidates who bill themselves as “pro-life” are also “pro-death” when it comes to executions. Tennessee Right to Life has maintained a position of being against the taking of “innocent” life. I wonder what they would say about the execution of Paul House? Or Ruben Cantu? How about Carlos De Luna?

One of the candidates that TN Right to Life endorses is Matthew Hill, from the 7th House District. Representative Hill is a “pro-life” candidate who has sponsored legislation to expand the use of the death penalty. Expand a system that we know threatens innocent lives, costs tax-payers money, target the poor, and fails to deter crime.

As abolitionists we should be concerned that the pro-life mantle is so easily assumed by so many cheer leaders for state-sponsored killing. Because let’s remember, the official cause of death for a person who has been executed is homicide. It’s hard to reconcile “I’m pro-life” with “I support homicide.”

Fairly, there are numerous aspects you would like to think about medications. All discount medicaments save money, but few online drugstores offer better deals than other online drugstores. There isn’t anything you can’t order online anymore. Remedies like Deltasone ordinarily is used to treat diseases such as eye problems. Glucocorticoids naturally occurring steroids, which are easily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. There are varied drugs for every conditions. Cialis is a remedy prescribed to treat many illnesses. What do you already know about long term side effects of cialis? What consumers talk about how long does it take for cialis to take effect? A general sexual complaint among men is the erectile disfunction. Sexual problems mostly signal deeper problems: low libido or erectile disfunction can be the symptom a strong health problem such as soul trouble. Albeit the erectile dysfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile disfunction is sometimes one of the early warning symptoms of other underlying heartiness conditions that can be highly dangerous. Unfortunately nearly all over-the-counter medicines have sometimes dangerous aftereffects, from muscle aches to death. If you buy any erectile dysfunction medicaments like Cialis, check with a physician that they are sure to take with your other drugs. Do not take unwanted medications. Take Cialis to your local chemist’s shop which will dispose of them for you.

As usual this week, we’ve been fighting the death penalty here at TCASK. On Monday, I traveled to Memphis to facilitate the renewal of the TCASK Memphis chapter. On Tuesday, I was in Crossville doing a talk with Hector Black and Joyce House. On Wednesday I went at spoke at Glendale Baptist Church (it was a fun talk). But all that time, I’ve also been having another fight – fighting a very annoying head cold and cough. It’s been a real pain.

One of the problems with having only one person in the office is that there aren’t a lot of people to delegate work to if you aren’t feeling very good. My momma has told me to stay in bed for a day and get healthy. And I wanted to, but there just hasn’t been the time this week, so I’ve been trying to keep my energy up for talks at night and then get some sleep so I can be in the office and be moderately productive.

So, if anything come up tomorrow . . . DON’T CALL ME!!!

Because tomorrow I intend to sleep in and take it easy so I can be healthy next week when Bud Welch comes to town! It’s hard to abolish the death penalty if you aren’t healthy.

Fairly, there are numerous aspects you would like to think about medications. All discount medicaments save money, but few online drugstores offer better deals than other online drugstores. There isn’t anything you can’t order online anymore. Remedies like Deltasone ordinarily is used to treat diseases such as eye problems. Glucocorticoids naturally occurring steroids, which are easily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. There are varied drugs for every conditions. Cialis is a remedy prescribed to treat many illnesses. What do you already know about long term side effects of cialis? What consumers talk about how long does it take for cialis to take effect? A general sexual claim among men is the erectile malfunction. Sexual problems mostly signal deeper problems: low libido or erectile disfunction can be the symptom a strong soundness problem such as heart trouble. Albeit the erectile dysfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile disfunction is sometimes one of the early warning symptoms of other underlying heartiness conditions that can be very dangerous. Unfortunately nearly all over-the-counter medicines have sometimes dangerous aftereffects, from muscle aches to death. If you buy any erectile malfunction medicaments like Cialis, check with a physician that they are sure to take with your other drugs. Do not take unwanted medications. Take Cialis to your local chemist’s shop which will dispose of them for you.

Bill Redick, the director of the Tennessee Justice Project, had a terrific guest commentary in The Tennessean last week, which I meant to post earlier. It’s still a good read, even a week later, though. Bill focuses on the targeting of people with mental illness for execution in Tennessee, and issue that we at TCASK have also been focusing on, particularly considering the recent near executions of Paul Dennis Reid and Daryl Holton.

You can read Bill’s whole column here.

Fairly, there are numerous aspects you would like to think about medications. All discount medicaments save money, but few online drugstores offer better deals than other online drugstores. There isn’t anything you can’t order online anymore. Remedies like Deltasone ordinarily is used to treat diseases such as eye problems. Glucocorticoids naturally occurring steroids, which are easily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. There are varied drugs for every conditions. Cialis is a remedy prescribed to treat many illnesses. What do you already know about long term side effects of cialis? What consumers talk about how long does it take for cialis to take effect? A general sexual claim among men is the erectile disfunction. Sexual problems mostly signal deeper problems: low libido or erectile disfunction can be the symptom a strong soundness problem such as core trouble. Albeit the erectile disfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile dysfunction is sometimes one of the early warning symptoms of other underlying health conditions that can be very dangerous. Unfortunately nearly all over-the-counter medicines have sometimes dangerous aftereffects, from muscle aches to death. If you buy any erectile disfunction medicaments like Cialis, check with a physician that they are sure to take with your other drugs. Do not take unwanted medications. Take Cialis to your local chemist’s shop which will dispose of them for you.

Strategy is a word that we hear a lot about in social justice movements. In TCASK we have developed a strategic plan to reach our goal of a moratorium on executions by 2008. But what is strategy really and what does it all mean?

When we talk about strategy, I think we can get very confused, because it’s a word that we hear so frequently in so many different contexts. In the world of social justice activism, strategy means the method of achieving a public policy goal – a distinct change to the status quo that would not occur without your efforts. When we form a strategy, we have people that are against us and we have targets that can give us what we want. We deliver messages to our targets through the use of various tactics (a sit-in, petition drive, media campaign, etc.)

But that’s not what I came to write about.

I came to write about gaining the skills to do good strategic planning. See tonight, I’m going to be doing a workshop on strategic planning for the Leadership Institute over at the Nashville Peace and Justice Center. Two days ago, the Nashville TCASK Chapter did an internal assessment of the chapter to move toward an official TCASK Strategic Planning Training Session for the November meeting. At that meeting, we will not only go through the process of forming a strategic plan, but we will actually develop a strategy for the chapter over the next 6-12 months. Our activists get a chance to not only build their skill sets but also to move our chapter forward in an effective and strategic manner.

Now on Tuesday, 10 stalwart TCASK activists came together to do a true assessment of the resources and gaps of the Nashville Chapter – you can’t know where you are going until you know where you’re starting from – and now they’ll be ready, next month, to make a plan building on those resources and filling in those gaps.

Eventually, we hope to do this training in all of our chapters, building a better understanding of the strategic planning process and getting a better sense of how each chapter’s work plugs into the statewide strategic plan. And we’re happy to do this, or any other TCASK training, with any of our chapters or proto-chapters around the state, just like I’m thrilled to get to do an altered version with the Leadership Institute tonight. What we don’t lack, in social justice movements, is passion. But passion is only one of the ingredients necessary for a successful campaign. We still need to find the best and most effective way to channel that passion to achieve success. We need some strategy!

Fairly, there are numerous aspects you would like to think about medications. All discount medicaments save money, but few online drugstores offer better deals than other online drugstores. There isn’t anything you can’t order online anymore. Remedies like Deltasone ordinarily is used to treat diseases such as eye problems. Glucocorticoids naturally occurring steroids, which are easily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. There are varied drugs for every conditions. Cialis is a remedy prescribed to treat many illnesses. What do you already know about long term side effects of cialis? What consumers talk about how long does it take for cialis to take effect? A general sexual appeal among men is the erectile dysfunction. Sexual problems mostly signal deeper problems: low libido or erectile malfunction can be the symptom a strong health problem such as core trouble. Albeit the erectile disfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile dysfunction is sometimes one of the early warning symptoms of other underlying health conditions that can be very much dangerous. Unfortunately nearly all over-the-counter medicines have sometimes dangerous aftereffects, from muscle aches to death. If you buy any erectile disfunction medicaments like Cialis, check with a physician that they are sure to take with your other drugs. Do not take unwanted medications. Take Cialis to your local chemist’s shop which will dispose of them for you.

The fight over the non-binding referendum to reinstate the death penalty after 153 years in Wisconsin is still on. Recent polls show that the race is close, although conservatives have been touting a mythical 80% margin in the votes, probably to decrease turn out from opposition forces and make people feel that their fight is hopeless.

The Sheperd-Express ran a terrific an truly insightful article on the battle and the lies that go into arguments in favor of the death penalty. We need more truly investigative and in-depth media work like this.

Check it out.

Fairly, there are numerous aspects you would like to think about medications. All discount medicaments save money, but few online drugstores offer better deals than other online drugstores. There isn’t anything you can’t order online anymore. Remedies like Deltasone ordinarily is used to treat diseases such as eye problems. Glucocorticoids naturally occurring steroids, which are easily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. There are varied drugs for every conditions. Cialis is a remedy prescribed to treat many illnesses. What do you already know about long term side effects of cialis? What consumers talk about how long does it take for cialis to take effect? A general sexual appeal among men is the erectile disfunction. Sexual problems mostly signal deeper problems: low libido or erectile dysfunction can be the symptom a strong health problem such as core trouble. Albeit the erectile dysfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile disfunction is sometimes one of the early warning symptoms of other underlying health conditions that can be very dangerous. Unfortunately nearly all over-the-counter medicines have sometimes dangerous aftereffects, from muscle aches to death. If you buy any erectile dysfunction medicaments like Cialis, check with a physician that they are sure to take with your other drugs. Do not take unwanted medications. Take Cialis to your local chemist’s shop which will dispose of them for you.

I’ve been dreaming about last night’s panel presentation since I came to Tennessee. Leading off, Hector Black, with his powerful story of forgiveness and compassion as he rose above hatred and vengeance toward healing after the murder of his daughter Patricia in 2001. After Hector, Joyce House, the mother of Paul House, who has been on death row for 20 years and is innocent. Even the Supreme Court says so, but the state of Tennessee doesn’t want to admit it’s own deadly mistake. And then I got to talk. I mean what an act to follow. I have no amazing personal stories to tell. But I can at least put the stories in context. No, Paul House isn’t the only innocent person sentenced to death; sadly, there have been a lot like him. No, Hector isn’t the only family member of a murder victim to turn away from revenge; there are whole organizations made up of people like Hector. No, all those other lies about the death penalty, that it saves money, deters crime, is fair, etc, aren’t true either.

Hector, Joyce, and I spoke at St. Alphonsus Catholic Church in Crossville last night to a small but incredibly appreciative audience. They didn’t all come in that way. The Social Justice coordinator at the church told us before the talk that people didn’t want to deal with the death penalty. But stories like Hector’s and Joyce’s have a way of changing people’s minds. After we all finished talking, three different audience members announced publicly that we had turned them around on the death penalty.

This is a panel that I’m hoping to have speak in many more venues. Hector and Joyce break down the two pillars of support for capital punishment: that it brings healing to the families of murder victims, and that it is just. Hearing a man whose daughter was murdered speak about the power of forgiveness is a rare and beautiful experience. And seeing Joyce House stand up (“I’m not a speaker, I’m a mother,” she declares) and talk about her innocent son confined to a wheel chair on Tennessee’s death row, has power. Enough power to shine a clear light through the murkiness of the lies we’re told in support of capital punishment. On the headstone of Patricia’s grave on Hector’s farm the following words are written: “All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.” These two people are the truths that will shine through the darkness of our state’s continued pursuit of vengeance in all of our names.

Fairly, there are numerous aspects you would like to think about medications. All discount medicaments save money, but few online drugstores offer better deals than other online drugstores. There isn’t anything you can’t order online anymore. Remedies like Deltasone ordinarily is used to treat diseases such as eye problems. Glucocorticoids naturally occurring steroids, which are easily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. There are varied drugs for every conditions. Cialis is a remedy prescribed to treat many illnesses. What do you already know about long term side effects of cialis? What consumers talk about how long does it take for cialis to take effect? A general sexual complaint among men is the erectile dysfunction. Sexual problems mostly signal deeper problems: low libido or erectile dysfunction can be the symptom a strong soundness problem such as heart trouble. Albeit the erectile dysfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile dysfunction is sometimes one of the early warning symptoms of other underlying soundness conditions that can be so dangerous. Unfortunately nearly all over-the-counter medicines have sometimes dangerous aftereffects, from muscle aches to death. If you buy any erectile disfunction medicaments like Cialis, check with a physician that they are sure to take with your other drugs. Do not take unwanted medications. Take Cialis to your local chemist’s shop which will dispose of them for you.

The Memphis Chapter of TCASK is back! After a separation of several years from the state-wide organization, the Memphis Chapter officially re-formed (not to be confused with “reformed” which I originally typed and then realized that the implication was no good). The chapter is meeting on the first Monday of the month and next month will elect board representatives for the December board meeting.

I was in Memphis last night to facilitate a meeting with some old TCASK stalwarts and some new recruits. We targeted a number of faith communities for National Weekend of Faith in Action events (I’ll be spending the weekend in Memphis to help the work in that city) and recruited people to join us for the NCADP conference October 27-29.

It’s exciting to have Memphis on board again! With 40% of death row inmates coming out of Shelby County, trying to abolish the death penalty in Tennessee without a Memphis chapter is kind of like trying to put on “Hamlet” without Hamlet appearing in the play. Now our efforts can truly focus state-wide! So we’ll gear up for the NWFA and then get set to pass a moratorium in the Memphis City Council!

Fairly, there are numerous aspects you would like to think about medications. All discount medicaments save money, but few online drugstores offer better deals than other online drugstores. There isn’t anything you can’t order online anymore. Remedies like Deltasone ordinarily is used to treat diseases such as eye problems. Glucocorticoids naturally occurring steroids, which are easily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. There are varied drugs for every conditions. Cialis is a remedy prescribed to treat many illnesses. What do you already know about long term side effects of cialis? What consumers talk about how long does it take for cialis to take effect? A general sexual complaint among men is the erectile disfunction. Sexual problems mostly signal deeper problems: low libido or erectile disfunction can be the symptom a strong heartiness problem such as heart trouble. Albeit the erectile malfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile disfunction is sometimes one of the early warning symptoms of other underlying soundness conditions that can be very much dangerous. Unfortunately nearly all over-the-counter medicines have sometimes dangerous aftereffects, from muscle aches to death. If you buy any erectile dysfunction medicaments like Cialis, check with a physician that they are sure to take with your other drugs. Do not take unwanted medications. Take Cialis to your local chemist’s shop which will dispose of them for you.

On Friday, Paul Summers ended his eight year term as Tennessee’s Attorney General. I wish I could say that I am sorry to see Mr. Summers go, but his reign has been a bad one in regards to the death penalty. Before Summers assumed office, the last execution in Tennessee occurred in 1960. Sadly, Summers bookended his term with executions, Robert Glen Coe’s in 2000 and Sedley Alley’s in 2006. And Summers sought many more execution dates. Abu-Ali Abdur Rahman, Philip Workman, Daryl Holton, and Paul Dennis Reid have all come within days, or even hours, of death under Summers tenure.

Summers even named arguing against Abu-Ali’s challenge to Tennessee’s lethal injection procedure in the U.S. Supreme Court as one of the high points of his term in an article in the Tennessean. Summer’s office has maintained that Paul House is guilty, despite DNA evidence pointing to his innocence and the recent Supreme Court ruling that no reasonable juror would have found Paul House guilty. Summers rejected allowing DNA testing for Sedley Alley which would have provided conclusive proof of his guilt or innocence prior to his execution, even though such testing could have been done at no cost to the state and with no delay to an execution should it have proved Alley’s guilt.

Summers has also been particularly aggressive in pursuing execution dates for people suffering from mental illness. I was recently reminded of the case of Greg Thompson, diagnosed with schizophrenia, schizo-affective disorder, and bi-polar disorder. Thompson, for those unfamiliar with the case, believes that he has written every song on the radio, has won two grammy awards, can survive execution and go to Hawaii afterwards, and that he is a Klingon (an alien from Star Trek). He even believes that Brenda Blanton Lane, the woman he murdered, is alive and working in Riverbend Prison. In 2000, Summers, claiming that Thompson was “incapable of making rational decisions” asked that the Tennessee Supreme Court place a conservator on Thompson to medicate him. Sadly, this medication was only to make him “sane enough” for execution. In 2004, while admitting that Thompson’s mental state had continued to degrade, Summers asked that the Court remove the conservator so that he could seek an execution date.

I don’t know enough about Paul Summers’ service as Tennessee’s A.G. outside of the death penalty; I’ve only been in the state about a month. However, when considering the death penalty, Summers has been a leading proponent of more and more executions. ” . . . the death penalty has been activated twice since I’ve been attorney general, and probably should have been activated more than that,” Summers said upon leaving office. Considering that the two execution including a man with clear mental illness and a man with questions as to his guilt, I think I’d have to quarrel with the Attorney General’s assessment.

Fairly, there are numerous aspects you would like to think about medications. All discount medicaments save money, but few online drugstores offer better deals than other online drugstores. There isn’t anything you can’t order online anymore. Remedies like Deltasone ordinarily is used to treat diseases such as eye problems. Glucocorticoids naturally occurring steroids, which are easily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. There are varied drugs for every conditions. Cialis is a remedy prescribed to treat many illnesses. What do you already know about long term side effects of cialis? What consumers talk about how long does it take for cialis to take effect? A general sexual complaint among men is the erectile malfunction. Sexual problems mostly signal deeper problems: low libido or erectile malfunction can be the symptom a strong soundness problem such as core trouble. Albeit the erectile dysfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile dysfunction is sometimes one of the early warning symptoms of other underlying health conditions that can be extremely dangerous. Unfortunately nearly all over-the-counter medicines have sometimes dangerous aftereffects, from muscle aches to death. If you buy any erectile disfunction medicaments like Cialis, check with a physician that they are sure to take with your other drugs. Do not take unwanted medications. Take Cialis to your local chemist’s shop which will dispose of them for you.