I think I annoyed Vivacia with my crazy school reform ideas.

Holy shit! My last entry was # 300 and I forgot! Oh well. Congrats to me, that was my 300th blog post! Wooo!

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Sorry I forgot to write a blog entry last night, Ryter and I hung out after my reall not-fun Chem lab (four hours and I only got 1% yield for one sample) and watched the movie Se7en, all because Ryter is doing a short preliminary-to-a-novel story on a telekinetic serial killer and I said, "You know, I always thought it would be cool to do a story about a killer whose MO is based on the seven deadly sins."

He then said, "You know what? Get in the car. We're going to Blockbuster."

So my idea's been done. I liked the movie, actually, though it was very creepy. Hang on a second....

SPOILERS, IF YOU CARE

Not that you should, it was released over ten years ago. Still, only fair to warn people.

I have to say, my favorite murder by far was the Sloth one. Chaining a guy to a bed and keeping him alive as his body is covered in excruciating sores until he looks like an long-dead corpse and his mind slowly turns to mush, so he can't identify you when he is found? Cutting off his hand to place his fingerprints at the scene of another crime, thus leading the cops to him at the perfect time? And even paying his rent so that his landlord never complained or noticed? That's impressive.

The writers were pretty creative with the murders. Gluttony= force feeding was kind of obvious, but a pound of flesh from the greedy man then bleeding him dry, that was clever. Although the "lust" one, making a john strap on a penis sheath with a blade on the end and stab a prostitute through the uterus, creeped me out because there are actually people who might make that sort of shit for someone. Gah. The model for Pride was interesting because I actually have trouble believing even a model would choose suicide over disfigured survival. I mean, really, you'd think she'd know something about plastic surgery. Someone could build her a new nose to replace the one he cut off.

The only part that really bugged me, though, was the final scene, specifically mailing the young detective's wife's head to him. Creepy and effective, yes. But I have two problems with it. One, Doe SPECIFICALLY said in the car that his victims were not "innocent people." As in, he killed them because they were sinners. He didn't think he was a monster for it, because they were not innocent. And yet... he kills a pregnant woman and her fetus with her, just to get at the guy he wants to peg as Wrath? Maybe he could justify the woman as obviously a sinner because all people are guilty of some sin, but Catholic dogma, which he was following, states that a child can't be accountable for their sins until they are seven years old, and that a newborn has only the original sin. By his own rules he should have been forced to leave her alone as soon as she said she was pregnant.

Also, I thought the detective should have died. All the other representations of sin died. Why not Wrath? I figured he should have killed himself and it should have ended right then.

But anyway.

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Today Vivacia and I had girl time. We talked and I helped her bake a cake for her mom's birthday, which they are celebrating tomorrow. It was fun.

And yet, while I like spending time with her, this is the first weekend since I got back to school that I haven't spent the night at Ryter's. It's actually been a couple months since I went a week without spending the night at Ryter's.

AHHH! Boyfriend withdrawal... No. Must. Kick. Habit...

I'm lonely.

This is what you get for lettin' us womenfolk think

There was an article on the death penalty that I was reading today, and I felt the need to put my 2 cents in on the subject.

I believe in the death penalty.

That said-- Texas is bonkers in how much they use it. Like the guy mentioned in this article, who raped and murdered a woman. One woman, however cruelly and violently. Should he be locked up for life? Yes. I also believe that violent rapists for whom there is DNA evidence proving the rape should be surgically castrated. Not chemically, as you stop taking the pills and the desire comes back-- if someone violently rapes a person and there is definite evidence both that he was the rapist and that the crime was violent in nature, they should have their testicles removed and replaced with prosthetics. Cruel and unusual? If a person kills someone with a car, they lose their license. If they shoot at someone with a gun, they are denied the ability to ever own one again. It's just removing a weapon.

And yet, as for the death penalty-- I am of the mind that the death penalty should only be used for repeat offenders. Serial killers and gang members and the like. No crimes of passion, no single-murders, just people who plotted and acted on their plans to murder a stranger, a passing acquaintance, or a rival.

Also, the insanity defense is way overused-- the only way you should be able to plead not guilty by reason of insanity is if a) you actually have a real mental illness, and one severe enough that your crime is plausible-- situational depression doesn't count; b) you were not undergoing treatment (because you were undiagnosed or were not enough in your right mind to chose to) at the time of the crime (or a proper course of treatment was not found); c) you agree to undergo treatment and NOT STOP for your ENTIRE life; and d) you are expected to be a functioning member of society if treated.

So if a person kills someone and blames it on postpartum depression, they should get the same treatment as a healthy person. If they are an undiagnosed schizophrenic and willing to undergo treatment, they can get off. See where I'm going with this? My point is that if you have another Ed Gein, who was determined not guilty by reason of insanity and sent to a mental hospital for his whole life-- well, honestly. He wasn't going to get better. And if he had been sane he probably would have been put to death. So if you've got someone like that, just put them to death.

But not the electric chair or anything. Nitrogen narcosis-- unconsciousness and painless suffocation, with mild euphoria beforehand. Plus it leaves the body undamaged so the family can chose to donate the organs or the whole body to science, if they so wish, or inter it intact, if their religion requests it.

And as for the people who claim the jails are too crowded from all the people who deserve to die already-- if we legalized and then regulated (most) drugs and saved jail for people who are a threat to others or who genuinely need rehabilitation.

Also, anyone in jail for life should have the option of painless elective suicide whenever they wish. I think it's only fair, honestly.

I wish I was able to do an overhaul on a prison and test some of my theories about rehabilitation, though. Even if I didn't get to set sentences or allow suicide. Things like work detail, trade education, and not allowing people convicted for certain crimes (pedophilia and gang crimes spring to mind) interact with each other (because that's how they learn techniques). That way I would see firsthand if it failed and accept the system we have now.

Angerin' The Moralists

Floralia continues:



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Took the Bio test today. I think I did... better, at least. Not that that was hard. Interestingly, I took the exam in the room which houses the school's insect collection. I didn't realize it at first, but my professor enthusiastically declared "You get to take the exam with the company of 80,000 arthropods!" That's when I noticed the massive safes. Yes, they lock up their bugs at night. All 80,000 of them.

(You can stop reading here if you like, that's the end of things that actually happened to ME today. Rest is just philosophatin'.)

I mean, I guess bugs are worth a lot on the black market to collectors, so they probably don't want them stolen. And that's an impressive collection. They must have had several different benefactors bequeath their collections. Which makes sense, I guess. Can you imagine going to a will reading and hearing, "And to my second-cousin Geraldine, I bequeath my extensive collection of Arthropoda, gathered painstakingly over the course of my life."

Though there are worse things. One collector donated several hundred carefully captured and stuffed birds to the school. They are currently on display in the Spaulding Life Sciences building second floor, row after row after row of them, from finches to owls all the way to large sea birds, and every time I walk down that hall to talk to my professor and walk past all those birds in their neat little glass cases with their carefully filled-out labels I am reminded of Ed Gein. I know, I know, I eat birds, at least until they find a way to enact my dinosaur consumption plans. But there's a difference between doing what biology tells us is okay and even necessary with other creatures and using them for pure, useless decoration. It's like...

"Certainly one could state that, like the serial killer, the trophy hunter plans his killing with considerable care and deliberation. Like the serial killer, he decides well in advance the type of victim--that is, which species he intends to target. Also like the serial killer, the trophy hunter plans with great care where and how the killing will take place--in what area, with what weapon. What the serial killer and trophy hunter also share is a compulsion to collect trophies or souvenirs of their killings. The serial killer retains certain body parts and/or other trophies for much the same reason as the big game hunter mounts the head and antlers taken from his prey...as trophies of the chase." ~Gareth Patterson, conservationist, in "The Killing Fields"

See, way more eloquent than me.

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I don't have anything interesting to say about my own life these days, so instead, I'll talk about someone else's. Did you hear about the Nigerian woman who married four women? She's a Muslim, and now she's a Muslim with four wives, on the run from the Sharia law police.

Now, let's look at this. Besides providing fantasies for young men everywhere, it's an interesting issue. Muslim men are allowed four wives; "...marry of the women, who seem good to you, two or three or four" (Women 4.3, the Koran). So that's not the issue. The issue is, of course, that she is a woman. But wait a minute...

"And Lot! (Remember) when he said unto his folk: Will ye commit abomination such as no creature ever did before you? Lo! ye come with lust unto men instead of women. Nay, but ye are wanton folk." (7:80-7:81, The Heights)
"What! Of all creatures do ye come unto the males, and leave the wives your Lord created for you ? Nay, but ye are froward folk." (26:165-26:166, The Poets)
"Must ye needs lust after men instead of women ? Nay, but ye are folk who act senselessly." (27:55, The Ant)
"And Lot! (Remember) when he said unto his folk: Lo! ye commit lewdness such as no creature did before you. For come ye not in unto males." (29:28-29:29, The Spider).

That's all the Quran has to say about homosexuality, and admittedly they make their point quite clear. Man-on-man = bad. But. Not once does it mention woman-on-woman. Never. And it's pretty clear reading that thing that women and men are held to different standards. Thus technically the Koran doesn't object at ALL to Ms. Maiduguri's marriages.

And since God was only revealed to them through the Koran and Mohammad, they've got nothing here. Nothing. If Allah sees it as a sin, he will punish them, and feel kinda dumb for not thinking to include that tidbit in his book, but they have no support for their "OMG EVIL" claims.

Well, they do have support. It's just in the form of a whole mess of guns.

As for me, I fully support this, on account of 1. Homosexuals should be allowed to marry, and 2. Polygamy should be legal provided that all those involved want it to happen and are of the correct age, and can get out of it (divorce) if they want to. If some grown woman doesn't mind hitching up with a guy who's already got two other grown women around the house, and neither of the previous wives objects to the newest addition to their little sorority, I say go for it.

Heck, I think that if ten bisexual folks, male and female, all want to have the right to live together and visit each other in the hospital if one is ill, they should be allowed to all marry each other. The only flaw in that plan is that no one will ever know who the kids belong to. But hey, that's their problem. And anyone that complains about it being a perverse environment to raise children should just think about all the crazy kinky stuff married, heterosexual couples with kids do behind closed doors. You don't expose the kids to it.

(And yes, I know that it's impractical and would screw up the legal code and all that jazz, but it's not like EVERYONE would be doing it. You'd get a bunch of people who did it for the novelty of it and then divorced later when they realized it was dumb; then you'd get some people who believed it was right and would do it for real, but the social stigma would be too great. You'd get maybe a hundred, two hundred polygamous marriages maximum, and the lack of legal repercussions for it would mean that women in a BAD situation, who wanted divorce but not to have her husband thrown in jail, wouldn't be afraid to go to the authorities. You can regulate legal stuff MUCH easier than illegal stuff.)