Sports Rivalries Are Frightening (plus a bonus rant on the death penalty) 

Well, once again, I lied about it being the last post of the day, but I'm trying to put off those papers for as long as humanly possible, so I'll write a bit more here, although it is kind of ironic that I'm writing in order to avoid writing. I want to talk a little about this whole Red Sox/Yankees rivalry. It's insane. It's really insane. The people on my floor were losing their minds over the Red Sox game. Meanwhile, the Yankees fans were insulting them. I heard things like, "Boston is gonna lose this game. You know why? Because BOSTON SUCKS!!!!" Of course, when Boston won, their fans started yelling and running up and down the halls, knocking on people's doors, the usual. I've mentioned that my roommate is a huge Yankees fan, so I'm a bit nervous about Boston and New York playing each other in the next series. One of his friends here is a big Sox fan, and I think they may have some problems. I said something like, "You and John aren't going to fight to the death or anything over this, are you?" His answer was, "Maybe if it goes to game 7...if John dies of 'natural causes' after Boston wins, I can't be held responsible." That was frightening. I'm glad I'm not taking sides with this one, being a Pittsburgher and everything (the Pirates still suck). One girl (the one who had the friend visiting-see Saturday's posts) even locked her roommate out because of the Boston/New York rivalry. I think her roommate is the Red Sox fan, but I'm not positive. In any case, this is going to be an interesting couple of weeks. I want to quickly write about one more thing before I really do sign off for the night. I was reading the NYT online again, and I saw an article about how humane lethal injection is. Apparently, if they don't use the right amount of chemicals, the inmate will be paralyzed but still conscious when injected with potassium chloride, which stops the heart and will "deliver the maximum amount of pain the veins can deliver, which is a lot." They're apparently worried that this is inhumane and are trying to find a way to make it completely painless. Give me a break. Why are these people so worried about how much the prisoner suffers? I thought the whole point of lethal injection was to make it easier on the people watching. Did it ever occur to them that the reason the person is being executed is that they have committed a crime against humanity and don't deserve to live? We're not talking about euthanasia here, we're talking about execution of convicted criminals, many of them guilty of multiple murders. Why should they be able to cause all that pain and suffering and then just doze off into death? At times, I think we should just inject them with sulfuric acid and watch them melt from the inside, but that would probably be a bit gratuitous. However, if there's a way to cause as much pain as possible without allowing onlookers to emphathize with the prisoner, as they can with electrocution, gas, hanging, firing squad, and other methods, why should people protest? The guy's going to die in a couple minutes anyway. It's not like he's going to sue anyone. I realize that my Christian beliefs allow for an eternity of punishment, but I really think that we need to send them off properly. What really confuses me is the fact that the same people who protest this kind of thing are usually the ones who defend abortion. That just doesn't make sense to me. At least with the death penalty, the victim has done something to deserve it. I'm not going to get into wrongful imprisonment or anything here, but I think that in cases where the prisoner is proven 100% guilty of murder, he should not be allowed to die peacefully. I'm pretty sure Timothy McVeigh was conscious when he died, and personally, I hope it was incredibly painful. Furthermore, if we catch Saddam Hussein, we should just give him the potassium chloride without all that anaesthetic crap. Once again, I think I went too far, but this is my blog and I'll say what I want. I hope you'll see the logic of my position. Later.