Daily Archives: May 19, 2015


A Marathon of Appeals

A Marathon of AppealsThe younger Boston Marathon bomber was sentenced to death on Friday. There will be victim impact statements this week, and then the appeals process begins which will drag on until I am old.

I don’t support the death penalty, even for shitty humans like Tsarnaev, and the majority of my neighbors agree. He was tried in Federal court, which sought the death penalty, so only jurors who were open to the idea (or “death qualified” in terrifying legal parlance) of state-sponsored murder were allowed to serve. Those jurors had a terrible job, and I’m sure they performed commendably, but their selection was not representative of the community.

The Richard family, who lost their young son and so much more in the bombing, publicly opposed a death sentence in a moving essay in the Boston Globe. It makes arguments in favor of the death penalty look like nothing more than petty vengeance.

Read the comic at The Nib.


America’s Rapidly Rising Faiths

Rapidly Rising FaithsA Pew survey came out last week showing that the ranks of Christians are declining in America, while the unaffiliated and other faiths are growing. Of course Christianity will remain a super-majority in the U.S. for decades to come, but it offers some hope that in the distant future, the religious right might lose their grip on national politics. Maybe.

Read the comic at the New York Times.