Death and Execution

As I type this post, Troy Davis, a man convicted of killing a policeman twenty years ago awaits death. He will be executed by lethal injection in a matter of a few hours, two at most.

I post paragraphs from one of my favourite essays ‘A Hanging’ by George Orwell, about death, killing and what it means to execute a person.

“It was about forty yards to the gallows. I watched the bare brown back of the prisoner marching in front of me. He walked clumsily with his bound arms, but quite steadily, with that bobbing gait of the Indian who never
straightens his knees. At each step his muscles slid neatly into place, the lock of hair on his scalp danced up and down, his feet printed themselves on the wet gravel. And once, in spite of the men who gripped him by each shoulder, he stepped slightly aside to avoid a puddle on the path.”

“It is curious, but till that moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide. This man was not dying, he was alive just as we were alive. All the organs of his body were working –bowels digesting food, skin renewing itself, nails growing, tissues forming–all toiling away in solemn foolery. His nails would still be growing when he stood on the drop, when he was falling through the air with a tenth of a second to live. His eyes saw the yellow gravel and the grey walls, and his brain still remembered, foresaw, reasoned–reasoned even about puddles. He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two
minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us would be gone–one mind less, one world less. ”

If by some rare chance, Troy Davis isn’t dead when you read this, please sign this petition here.

London snow – November 2010

London was absolutely miserable the whole of last week! At least it didn’t snow over the weekend. As I type this it is -3 degrees Celsius in London. The whole of last week snowed and it was apparently the worst November in at least 60 years, and the past tense of ‘snow’ is not ‘snew’.

I have been in this country for 4 years now and this November has been absolutely brutal! I remember going on site visits to open lands in Hounslow, London last November wearing just a shirt and a jumper. I was fully covered the last few days when I used to go out. I am generally resistant to the cold in London having spent most of my time in Newcastle which is arguably the coldest part in England, however I found London very cold this winter – God protect the poor buggers in Newcastle!

Here are a few pictures I took when my hands were so cold that they were burning! Yes, a sensation felt only by those who have lived in extreme winters. By ‘extreme’ I mean cold European winters, not the ones at the poles. Poles meaning, north and south – just in case.

Not the best photographs, but I like to use my blog as a sort of palimpsest where I record information for my own reminiscence later on. Hope you find them interesting too!

Outside my room window on 30.11. 2010. The roads are usually deserted, but the main roads may have been blocked due to the weather – hence the traffic

At the park near my house.

That’s me going back to my childhood. Three ways I can die :

1. Of hypothermia.
2. The weather beaten rope loosing tension and tearing and my head hitting the rock solid ice at least five feet below.
3. The three trunks converging at a point and plunging me to my death, it’s mathematically impossible that the trunks itself will hit me though.

Of course I didn’t die. Yet.

Oh, Graeme Swann just wrapped up the Australians in Adelaide and England lead the Ashes 1-0.

The furry bee…

…found dead on my table.

All alone one day

Two images I took when I was at home.

The one on top was taken when I was staying at the Polonnaruwa Rest house, a beautiful building cantilevered onto the lake, I am told it was hastily built as a place where Queen Elizabeth II can stay when she visited Sri Lanka I think in 1952.

I was staying there with some friends and they all left me after a few days as I had to stay an extra day to finish some commitments, naturally I was feeling a bit lonely after having spent so long in the company of my friends. Then all my phone could do was make calls and recieve them and send and recieve texts, facebook was relatively new and twitter was unheard of. If I recall right, this was taken in 2007, and justifiably insinuates my frame of mind at that moment in time.

The second picture was taken from the terrace of the Mt Lavinia hotel, obviously this guy doesnt feel lonely, his friends were swimming around him as if he was seeking refuge on top of that rock from a bunch of Piranhas, albeit the picture suggests otherwise.

Somehow, the second picture reminds me of this incident and hence I don’t really appreciate the stories that flood my mind when I see it.

We will not go down..

A blinding flash of white light
Lit up the sky over Gaza tonight
People running for cover
Not knowing whether they’re dead or alive

They came with their tanks and their planes
With ravaging fiery flames
And nothing remains
Just a voice rising up in the smoky haze

We will not go down
In the night, without a fight
You can burn up our mosques and our homes and our schools
But our spirit will never die
We will not go down
In Gaza tonight

Women and children alike
Murdered and massacred night after night
While the so-called leaders of countries afar
Debated on who’s wrong or right

But their powerless words were in vain
And the bombs fell down like acid rain
But through the tears and the blood and the pain
You can still hear that voice through the smoky haze

We will not go down
In the night, without a fight
You can burn up our mosques and our homes and our schools
But our spirit will never die
We will not go down
In Gaza tonight

We will not go down
In the night, without a fight
You can burn up our mosques and our homes and our schools
But our spirit will never die

We will not go down
In the night, without a fight

We will not go down
In Gaza tonight

Micheal Hart

Face of death!

Sculpture of death!, originally uploaded by aufidius.

taken at an art exhibition in Newcastle. It had such an eery deathly feel to it, a friend of mine who touched it had no peace of mind until he washed his hands.

Mistake..

Story about a man who is convicted of murdering a police officer, sentenced to death and subsequently after the man dies after the sentence was carried out facts are unearthed which reflects the innocence of the man already dead. The 120 second video speaks so much about how sensitive a tool the death penalty is and how many people can be sentenced to death even when no blood is in their hands.

Then they bury the people here..

With up to 12,000 cremations a year carried outhere, it was necessary to provide an appropriate setting for mourners as well. The two functions – cremation and funeral ceremonies – take place on separate floors of this monolithic exposed concrete structure. Access to the building is via three recessed forecourts, which lead into the large central vestibule. This square hall can accommodate up to 1,000 people and is spatially articulated by 29 monumental circular columns with so-called “light capitals” at their heads. Supported only by cantilevered brackets at the tops of the columns, the rough concrete roof seems to hover over this space like a translucent canopy. The lines of the climbing formwork to the walls create an ordering structure.