Lots of lynching photos at Without Sanctuary.

Searching through America's past for the last 25 years, collector James Allen uncovered an extraordinary visual legacy: photographs and postcards taken as souvenirs at lynchings throughout America. With essays by Hilton Als, Leon Litwack, Congressman John Lewis and James Allen, these photographs have been published as a book – "Without Sanctuary" by Twin Palms Publishers.

Please be aware before entering the site that much of the material is very disturbing.

It still amazes and disturbs me that stuff like that happened on our own soil, not even 100 years ago... and I'm glad that a historical record exists, in the hopes of informing people and insuring they don't happen again. The concept of these as postcards is more ghoulish to me than some war photos, though I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's because I can agree with some of the carnage and death associated with war... though I can't accept torture as an acceptable response to crimes. I honestly don't know how many of the folks pictured even *committed* crimes, for that matter. I have no problem with hanging a murderer, but to my mind, a lynching implies a lack of law and torture before death... sort of a frontier justice that is more responsive to mob rule than to punishing the guilty or exonerating the innocent.

Soaking someone in oil and setting them aflame is heinous act, no matter what the person did. I wonder what effect it had on people, especially the children viewing such stuff it had. Does that make violence more acceptable to them? Would it drive home the "electric chair" argument of deterrence?

In lighter-weight news, I'm not on Chef Cluster anymore!

You, scottobear, are on the Santa Cluster, subcluster 7!

Ah well, at least I'm still on a well-loved, bearded, fat guy cluster.

Nifty complimentary web-color picker toy. Handy if you're designing layouts.

Gender Genie thought this entry was female too. Looking at the success rate, it looks like GG is a failure, being wrong over half the time, when an 80% success rate was estimated.

The gang are talking about playing a monkey-mod of half-life. Now I just have to find my old half-life CDs. I haven't used them since the turn of the century!


Today's eats

I went piggy, because I had a lot of bank left, and a pizza that was taking up space in the fridge for lunch.

Points: 43.5 Adj: 0 Act: 0.0 Rem: -9.5
Bank: 3.0 Adj: 0
Bank Max: 35 Point: 0 Act: 0
Bank Method: Start on Monday
Vitamins: Yes

Breakfast: 4.2 points
2.1: Cereals; LC OATS 1 cup
2.1: Cereals; LC OATS 1 cup

Lunch: 21.3 points
14.3: Cheese Pizza
3.5: Goldfish
3.5: Goldfish

Dinner: 9.4 points
3.1: Chik patties - morningstar
3.1: Chik patties - morningstar
0.1: Beans; snap; green; canned; no salt added; drained solids
3.1: Chik patties - morningstar

Snack: 8.6 points
4.3: Toaster Pastries; POP TARTS; Frosted chocolate fudge
4.3: Toaster Pastries; POP TARTS; Frosted chocolate fudge

My inner child is ten years old!

The adult world is pretty irrelevant to me. Whether
I'm off on my bicycle (or pony) exploring, lost
in a good book, or giggling with my best
friend, I live in a world apart, one full of
adventure and wonder and other stuff adults
don't understand.


How Old is Your Inner Child?
brought to you by Quizilla

Silly ol' Newt! He just rebounded off of my head, jumping from behind to get the desk. I guess I moved into his non-anticipation range. He seems ok, but a little surprised. I picked him up and gave lots of love. :)