This year’s Martin Luther King holiday is made even more poignant by the fact that this will be the first MLK day celebrated without Coretta Scott King who died in 2006. She, too, was a crusader for justice, nonviolence, and equality who continued the struggle to create a more loving world until her death. Coretta Scott King also strongly opposed the death penalty saying:

As one whose husband and mother-in-law have both died the victims of murder assassination, I stand firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses. An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation. Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life. Morality is never upheld by legalized murder.

TCASK will again participate in the Nashville MLK Day celebration and march on Monday, January 15th. A program will be held at Jefferson Street Missionary Baptist Church beginning at 8:30 a.m. If you are in the Nashville area, we encourage you to be present for this powerful gathering. If you are unable to attend the program but would like to march with us, gather at the church at 10:00 a.m., and we will join the march as a group.

I hope many of you will join us as we celebrate the prophetic voices of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King.

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 dysfunction can be the symptom a strong health problem such as core trouble. Albeit the erectile malfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile malfunction 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 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 recently had to call The Tennessean to get them to restore a link that had expired and that process made me reread the piece, a moving testimony written by Charlie Strobel around the time of Sedley Alley’s execution. This reminded me of admiration for the amazing people who have found the power in their own lives to rise above our society’s calls for vengeance to find a better, more healing, path. In Charlie’s words:

Even if my mother’s killer thought his life was more valuable than her life, we never once believed that her life was more valuable than his life. Nor did we allow his view of life to become our view of life, despite what society might have wanted. So we did not seek the death penalty.

The whole piece is terrific and well worth the read, on the restored link.

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 dysfunction can be the symptom a strong health 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 heartiness 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 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.

The Dallas Morning News carried an excellent piece recently on legislation aimed at being tougher on crime, particularly sex crimes. In last year’s legislative session here in Tennessee, we faced a bill to expand the use of the death penalty to people convicted of the rape of a minor, so this is clearly a relevant issue for us as well.

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 dysfunction. 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 disfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile dysfunction is sometimes one of the early warning symptoms of other underlying soundness 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 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.

Karan Simpson (who along with her husband Harry forms the dynamic duo of TCASK photography) just sent me a few great pictures and a link to a flicker site with some terrific shots from our vigil against Sedley Alley’s execution, sign holdings to stop the execution of Daryl Holton, Free Paul House Concert, and last night’s lobby training.

Check it out 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 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 core trouble. Albeit the erectile dysfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile disfunction is sometimes one of the early warning symptoms of other underlying soundness conditions that can be 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.

As any Tennessee politics junkies out there already know, yesterday, John Wilder’s 36 year reign as Speaker of the Senate and Tennessee Lieutenant Governor ended, when Senator Ron Ramsey of Blountville was elected by an 18-15 margin. Ramsey gained all 17 Republican votes as well as the vote of Democratic Senator Rosalind Kurita. Ramsey’s election marks the first time in 140 years that a Republican will hold this coveted post. Talk about a change in the wind.

What does this mean for our efforts in the coming legislative session? Frankly, I don’t know. What’s unclear now (and was unclear before yesterday’s election) is who will chair the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will field any bills dealing with the death penalty. Committee chairs have an enormous amount of power, so who chairs the Judiciary Committee is vitally important to our efforts. We always knew that, with a 17-16 Republican lead in the Senate, our efforts will have to be bi-partisan, but since when has justice been a partisan issue? I haven’t noticed that either party has a monopoly on equality or fairness. Those are values that all Americans share, and I was inspired to hear Senator Ramsey speak, a few months ago, to the National Conference of State Legislators and talk about the importance of DNA evidence to prove innocence as well as guilt.

But the real change in the wind that I was talking about when I titled this post didn’t happen in the packed Senate chamber yesterday afternoon. It happened at the Nashville Peace and Justice Center yesterday evening, when 20 people showed up for TCASK Lobby Training! 20 PEOPLE!!! In under two hours, these folks, some TCASK regulars, some coming for the first time, learned how the Tennessee legislative process works, the techniques and universal rules of lobbying, and the fine points of making a visit to your legislator.

To me, last night signaled that TCASK is getting more sophisticated and skilled in its work every day. Last year, for the first time, TCASK began seriously working the legislative (or inside) end of the inside-outside strategy that we’ll use to end the death penalty hear in Tennessee. This year, we’ve worked hard to build partnerships with strong lobby partner organizations, and now we have over 20 people, just in Nashville, ready to become successful citizen lobbyists against the death penalty. I don’t care who is in office, that is a powerful wind blowing toward abolition.

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 heart trouble. Albeit the erectile disfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile disfunction is sometimes one of the early warning symptoms of other underlying soundness 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.

The death penalty has been getting some press the last few days. Perhaps the New Jersey Commission’s report to recommend the abolition of the death penalty in that state has inspired the coverage. On Friday, the Tennessean ran a story showing a decline in the use of the death penalty in 2006 to its lowest level since 1976. The possibility of making a mistake is listed as the number one reason for the decline, followed by the institution of life without parole, a drop in violent crime, and the cost of prosecuting a capital case as other possible reasons.

In that same paper on the opinion page, Attorney Brad Maclean discusses lethal injection and the major problems with the method as highlighted by the recent decisions in California and Florida to halt the procedure pending full review. Brad Maclean skillfully walks readers through the process of executing someone by lethal injection and highlights all the ways that the procedure can go terribly wrong from the ineffectiveness of the chemicals to the lack of training of those administering the drugs.

Then, in yesterday’s paper, a story entitled, Judge vocal against the death penalty, discusses the views of 6th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge and former Chief Judge Boyce Martin, who has become increasingly outspoken concerning his views on the death penalty and its application in this country. In a 2005 dissent in which Judge Martin notes his long service as an appeals court judge, service of more than 25 years, he says, “only one conclusion is possible…The death penalty in this country is arbitrary, biased and so fundamentally flawed at its very core that it is beyond repair.”

Today marks the opening day of the legislative session here in Tennessee. I hope that our legislators have been reading their papers lately! I believe that the wind is shifting in this country on the issue of capital punishment. The problems are too real to deny and to deep to undo. My hope is that the press will continue to keep this issue in the forefront of our minds, raising the hard questions, as our state prepares to execute EJ Harbison in February.

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 disfunction can be the symptom a strong health 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 highly 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.

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I hate online polls, forwarded tree emails, etc. I don’t have a facebook or my space profile and before being pushed into the blogosphere due to my work here at TCASK, I certainly would never have had any interest in blogging. But today I’m going to refer you to an online poll.

As you probably know if you’ve been reading, last week, the New Jersey commission tasked with studying the death penalty recommended abolition! But that is still a scary step for a lot of legislators to take, so they need out help to buck them up for it. Thus the online poll. The Asbury Park Press has been running an online poll asking of the death penalty should be replaced with LWOP and the polling is very close. 50.6% to 49.4% last time I checked. So your votes can really count. So click here to vote and make your voice heard.

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 disfunction can be the symptom a strong heartiness problem such as soul trouble. Albeit the erectile disfunction itself isn’t necessarily dangerous, erectile dysfunction 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 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.

Tonight is the night! The Playhouse on the Square’s production of The Exonerated has it’s first production tonight and then every Thursday-Sunday in January. The play tells the stories of six innocent survivors of death row, using their own words as taken from testimony from trial, letters, interviews, and case files. If you’ve never seen the play and live in (or anywhere close to) Memphis, make it a point to see this production. If you have seen it, then you know how powerful a production it is and you should go see it again and bring as many of your friends as possible. Either way, make sure to check it out!

As organizers, we want to leverage as many different voices, messages, and messengers as we can to sway the hearts and minds of our policy-makers. And we shouldn’t underestimate the usefulness of artistic expression in that work. Whether it’s death row art shows, film screenings, or plays like The Exonerated, we want to use every opportunity to open people’s minds to new concepts.

We’re really lucky to be working with Playhouse on the Square in a cooperative relationship in this case. We’re helping them out by publicizing their production as much as we can, and in turn they are allowing the Memphis chapter to table at each show, so that people leaving the theatre, and having been moved by the production, are given an opportunity to take concrete action and get involved right then and there. In addition, the Playhouse is letting yours truly come and do a talk-back after the show tomorrow night, so when the lights come up after the final curtain, I get to walk out on stage.

What makes this even better is that, through our partnership with the Memphis Branch of the NAACP, we’ll have a number of representatives from the Shelby County Commission in attendance, so we can use this as a chance to begin the dialogue with them around the need for a moratorium and how individual municipalities can help in that effort. All in all, I’m proud of the work that we’ve been able to do around this production and I think that it should yield great results.

It’s showtime!

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 dysfunction can be the symptom a strong health 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 health 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 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.

Syndicated columnist, Richard Cohen, recently named Greg Thompson (currently incarcerated on Tennessee’s death row) as his person of the year for 2006, chosen “to call attention to the madness of the death penalty.”

Cohen points out that death penalty cases are built on certainty, but that the only true certainty we can have is that sometimes we will be wrong. In the case of the death penalty, that wrongness is quite literally deadly.

Read the whole piece, 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 appeal among men is the erectile dysfunction. Sexual problems mostly signal deeper problems: low libido or erectile dysfunction can be the symptom a strong health 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 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 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.

Yesterday, in the late afternoon, as I was alone in the office, a man appeared in the doorway. I stepped out from behind my desk to greet him and promptly got an earful. He wanted to let me know that he was totally for the death penalty, and his only concern with it was that killers were not executed in the same fashion as they killed their victims. He told me that we, at TCASK, were just plain wrong to be opposed to the death penalty. I simply stood there and listened. He then made a quick exit but not before letting me know that he was thrilled that Saddam Hussein had been hung. I didn’t respond at all except to wish him a good day, figuring that with the anger he had just demonstrated, he could use one.

My heart ached a bit when I sat back down at my desk as I pondered the horrible things that human beings do to each other and the level of pain we continue to inflict. I was at my parents’ home when the special report interrupted the TV show I was watching to say that Saddam Hussein had been executed. I was chilled to the bone by the news, but my reaction had little to do with Saddam himself. Clearly, Hussein had no regard for human life and perpetrated countless atrocities during his reign of terror in Iraq. He flaunted his unchecked power and eliminated anyone who dared cross him. Bottom line, he was not a nice guy.

And yet, as I saw him in the film footage, escorted by men in black hoods to the gallows, I could only shake my head as I knew that his death would accomplish nothing more than another addition to the body count in the continued escalation of violence in Iraq; one more death in the human struggle to establish justice through vengeance; one more body to bury, changing nothing of the past and further dehumanizing those who participate in such killing.

The next day, I gathered at the little country church of my childhood for worship. My 96 year old great-uncle spoke about the execution of Hussein. I have learned to listen closely when a man who has lived for 96 years speaks! In his West Tennessee drawl he said, “I didn’t care much for that Hussein one way or t’other, but I don’t see what good killin’ him done. Today, folks are still gettin’ killed over there, and not one thing is solved.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

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 disfunction can be the symptom a strong health 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 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.