The on-line writings of
Debora Weber-Wulff

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USA 2000

On my trip to the USA in August 2000 I feel the need to record a number of my observations. I moved to Europe 24 years ago, and see some things with different eyes.

This is a loud country. We were trying to eat lunch at the food court near our gate at LaGuardia. There was rock music coming from one direction, MUZAK from another, a TV from the third, and people spoke loudly to each other. We were able to participate in a number of greeting scenes and the like as passive listeners, but we could barely have a conversation ourselves above the din.

On the death penalty:
The State of Texas put two convicted murders to death on August 9. One was a young man, Cruz, who was retarded. He committed his crime together with another, who copped a plea-bargain and is still alive in prison. I was following the debate on AOL, and was so shocked at the sentiments being expressed (in terrible grammar and punctuation, what on earth did people learn in school?) that I wrote the following note.

Subject: A sorry state of affairs
Date: Wed, Aug 9, 2000 11:53 PM
From: Weberwu13
Message-id: <20000809235324.03308.00000495@ng-fm1.aol.com>
I am shocked at the reactions voiced in these groups.
* People misquote scripture at each other. I have a suspicion that many have not actually read the appropriate passages, but just remember a few sound bites like "an eye for an eye" from Sunday School. But this is all irrelevant, as the Bible is not the law of the land.
* People use unbelieveably aggressive and/or flippant words for a very grave matter: the State taking the life of one of its citizens.
* People write bizzare statements about abortions, as if that had something to do with executions! I got so aggrevated at the inflated numbers, by the way (12 million / 20 million "babies" a year) that I checked: 1,4 million in 1996 and falling. What on earth does a woman's *choice* of whether to be a mother or not have to do with the State choosing to kill someone?
* I followed up the link giving the list of executions set in Texas for the rest of the year. The list is very long and does not seem to have many people with money for a proper defense on them. Look at the case in point: Cruz wasn't alone. So where is his buddy? Ah, he plea-bargained, layed it on Cruz, and got off with a sentence. I followed the link to Cruz paperwork - he didn't even have a criminal record. (Link)
This is not a topic suitable for shoot-from-the-hip comments - it is a multi-faceted complex problem that does not have easy answers, how ever much people long for the simplicity of a "proper" punishment for a crime. Think, read, pray about it.
And do make this an issue in the presidential race: Why do Americans continue with the death penalty, when many other nations have decided to stop? Perhaps the answer lies elsewhere, in preventing crime by getting rid of guns and other weapons and educating the populace so they can make enough money to feed their children.
Enough for tonight.

This sure *IS* a loud country. We went to see "Space Cowboys" at the local movie theater. The volume was so loud, I wished I had Oropax along. The movie was rated PG-13, but our 8-year-old pleaded to come along. We went to AOLs Parental advice page and found a rating of the movie on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 highest) and found it rated 3 on nudity (for one Playboy pinup from behind and four naked men from behind), 3 on violence (one guy gets killed) and 5 on foul language. So we went, took him along, and enjoyed it, despite the noise.

Letzte Änderung: 14.03.01 - 13:28