Two articles in the papers caught my eye recently.

1.) Last Thursday, the Washington post ran an editorial about proposed federal legislation to water down federal “habeas corpus” protections for criminals facing the death penalty. The bill is called the Streamlined Procedures Act, and its now in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Within the past few years, DNA evidence has shown that a handful of innocent people have probably been executed in capital cases since Gary Gilmore went down in ’78. Therefore, it doesn’t seem like a good time to handcuff the feds, who are often the only hope for the victim of an aggressive prosecutor looking to close a high-profile murder case and show the press that he or she has exacted justice for a heinous crime.

Too often, local prosecutors have their eyes on other prizes — e.g. mayor, governor, senator, etc. It doesn’t happen much, but there are times when a poor person without access to effective legal counsel (the quality of public defenders and the resources available to them vary greatly from state to state) is picked out because a nice-looking case can be made against him, and exonerating evidence can be conveniently discounted. Yes, that person is often guilty of other crimes such as robbery or assault. That only makes the person a juicier target for a chief of detectives or a prosecutor frustrated by the lack of any solid leads. Again, it doesn’t happen much. But the criminal justice system is far from perfect, and if we are going to let it have to power to kill people, we need to make it harder and more strictly controlled, not easier.

The Streamlined Procedures Act is just another manifestation of the conservative revolution of the GWB years. Interestingly enough, the Republicans want to proclaim that Jesus is Lord and Savior in our schools and city halls, and at the same time they want to go back to the eye-for-an-eye philosophy of the Old Testament (something Jesus wasn’t too big on). I myself believe that although murderers have to account for their acts and thus be seperated from the society that they have attacked, until they are too old or feeble to do any more harm, the state should avoid doing that which it seeks to sanction. Although stopping the Streamlined Procedures Act would not eliminate the death penalty, it would at least make it harder to kill an innocent person. I suggest that you locate your Representative and Senators on the web and drop them an e-mail asking them to administer the death penalty to the Streamlined Procedures Act.

2.) The SUV, the roadway monster of the Republican era of laissez-faire excess (including the Clinton crypto-Republican years), is finally under attack. Higher fuel prices have caused SUV sales to decline. According to an article in the NY Times this past Monday, sales of large S.U.V.’s in September were down 43 percent from a year earlier. Over the past 15 years, Ford and GM have put most of their efforts into building and selling huge SUVs; so it’s not too surprising that G.M.’s overall sales fell 24.2 percent and Ford’s declined 20.3 percent, compared with the same month a year earlier. The Japanese car companies, which have focused on passenger cars and smaller S.U.V.’s, are doing well. Toyota’s sales rose 10.3 percent, Honda’s increased 11.7 percent and Nissan’s, 16.4 percent in September from a year ago.

Gas prices are coming down again; I saw regular going for $2.69 today. But the glory days of $1.50 gas is probably over. I’m hoping that $75 fill-ups will make Americans realize that the days of “every man and woman for themselves” is coming to an end, and an era of cooperation and maybe even a little sacrifice for the greater good might not be such a bad thing at this point; it’s worth a try, anyway.