Craig Zelizer has been working at education in conflict and peacemaking for a long time now. This blog post gathers together what he has learned about funding your education.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Top Resources for Finding Scholarships/Fellowships in Conflict Resolution and Related Fields - Peace and Collaborative Development Network
Top Resources for Finding Scholarships/Fellowships in Conflict Resolution and Related Fields - Peace and Collaborative Development Network
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Hospira to Stop Making Lethal-Injection Drug - WSJ.com
Hospira to Stop Making Lethal-Injection Drug - WSJ.com
Say what you will about pharmaceutical companies, they get that being associated with the death penalty is a bad thing. 105 countries have abolished the death penalty by law or practice. The United States is one of the few places where one can find an active pro-death penalty group. This is a big change in the last fifty years.
There are many reasons proposed for this shift in international public opinion. Many of the reasons behind this shift can be explored at http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/. In some countries the death penalty was abolished as part of undoing a history of oppression. When a new order comes to power vestiges of the old order are swept away. Others have realized that killing people who kill people does not teach that we shouldn't kill people. In this new age of DNA evidence we are also discovering that innocent people get convicted more often than was once thought.
There are many reasons proposed for this shift in international public opinion. Many of the reasons behind this shift can be explored at http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/. In some countries the death penalty was abolished as part of undoing a history of oppression. When a new order comes to power vestiges of the old order are swept away. Others have realized that killing people who kill people does not teach that we shouldn't kill people. In this new age of DNA evidence we are also discovering that innocent people get convicted more often than was once thought.
The economic argument that the death penalty saves money has long been untrue in the US. Even when executions are being done it takes many years for an individual to be executed. California is spending over $100 million a year to house over 700 death row inmates in single cells. Interestingly, there are about as many people on death row in California as have ever been executed in California.
As one US Supreme Court justice famously said, "death is different." It is permanent. There is no undo button. When you add years of incarceration with a death sentence hanging over the inmate's head it is also uniquely brutal. While some would argue that the brutality is appropriate, that group keeps shrinking as a proportion of the population.
Some ask why the death penalty is a big deal to anyone, given the number of violent deaths we hear about every day, and the American penchant for military adventures. More Americans have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last 10 years than are on death row (3,291 in 2009). The difference is in the individualized premeditation of the death penalty. Soldiers are killed in war zones, but it isn't personal. Soldiers kill in war zones, but they rarely set out to kill the individuals they end up killing. The death penalty requires a long, individualized process of officially deciding to kill a particular person. That makes it more horrifying.
Isn't it time for the US to get with the trajectory of human development?
As one US Supreme Court justice famously said, "death is different." It is permanent. There is no undo button. When you add years of incarceration with a death sentence hanging over the inmate's head it is also uniquely brutal. While some would argue that the brutality is appropriate, that group keeps shrinking as a proportion of the population.
Some ask why the death penalty is a big deal to anyone, given the number of violent deaths we hear about every day, and the American penchant for military adventures. More Americans have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last 10 years than are on death row (3,291 in 2009). The difference is in the individualized premeditation of the death penalty. Soldiers are killed in war zones, but it isn't personal. Soldiers kill in war zones, but they rarely set out to kill the individuals they end up killing. The death penalty requires a long, individualized process of officially deciding to kill a particular person. That makes it more horrifying.
Isn't it time for the US to get with the trajectory of human development?
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