Whacking Wood

Aren’t we all a little tired of the debate about how humane the execution of Joseph Wood was last week?

I mean, no matter what your position on capital punishment is, this story has disintegrated into a silly Monty Python skit.

First came the discussion about the cocktail of chemicals itself and whether Wood got to approve the ingredients: Light on the vermouth, house vodka, please, and three olives.

It began to sound like that, until the corrections people teamed with the medical people to agree on what was available to kill a killer. The combo they agreed on has been used a couple of times before with the same success that General Motors has had with its ignition systems.

So, Joseph Wood had his lethal injection lines inserted correctly, we are told, but then things began to go awry.

The descriptions of Wood’s death have ranged from a few minutes to two hours — gasping more than 600 times or peacefully snoring — all from witnesses on the scene.

Here’s my solution: You want to punish and deter crime? Stop the humane crap. A cage with hungry wolves or boiling or a dynamite suppository — and put it on Pay-Per-View TV.

Uncivilized?

You want civilized, go live in one of the countries without a death penalty.

I’m Pat McMahon.

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