The Execution of Tookie WIlliams: Testing Marshall's Hypothesis and the Possibility of Change

This morning, the death row inmate Stanley "Tookie" Williams was refused clemency from California Governor Schwarzenegger. His last hope exhausted, Tookie was executed in San Quentin prison, north of San Francisco. His case has attracted global media interest and, since you are no doubt familiar with the details of the crimes for which he today paid the ultimate price, I do not intend to talk of them here.

Aside from the obvious racial aspect, I believe that this case has generated so much press coverage not because of the events that led to him being on death row, but because of the character of Tookie himself. In spite of the persistent questions over his actual involvement in the homicides for which he was convicted, it was his personal transformation - from violent gang-member to principled educator, which seems to have most caught the public imagination.

So, in the aftermath of his death and the inevitable debates that will follow over the continued use of the death penalty in civilized society, we are forced to consider the two critical challenges to this draconian practice that Tookie's life represents: the possibility of miscarriages and the potential for personal change.

It is with respect to both these factors that I intend to examine today's events and justify my personal view on capital punishment. Though there are, of course, other factors that can may be considered, i.e. political (right to life Vs community stability), religious (forgiveness Vs retribution) , or even economic (cost of prison Vs cost of death row processes), and while they no doubt inform the questions I will consider, they produce, to my mind, less conclusive recommendations.

Throughout the blog, references to the ‘death penalty’ will be intended to imply the American model, as distinct from executions carried out in China or Saudi Arabia, for example. This is not just because of Tookie’s case, nor is it the fact the American’s appeal processes constitute an example of ‘good practice in a bad system’, when compared to the many countries in the world that still retain the right to kill their citizens. Instead, America informs the debate by virtue of the fact that it is the country where the rights of the ordinary citizen are most heavily contrasted with those of the death-row inmate.

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While uncertainty exists over whether Tookie actually did commit the homicides for which he was convicted (in the absence of conclusive forensics, the evidence against him was taken from ‘prison snitches’ and right till the end, he made no confessions) there is little doubt that innocent people have been, and will continue to be, killed under the present system. N.b.‘Innocent’, in this respect, means ‘not guilty of the crime for which they are being punished’ as well as ‘not guilty of any crime’- the death row inmate who accidentally killed a bank clerk during a robbery may be ‘innocent’ of the crime of first degree murder, depending on the circumstances.

Allegations of miscarriages of justice are, these days, common place. However, just as it would be naive to think death row houses only innocent men, this does not mean there is no truth to these claims. Thanks to detailed re-examinations of prior convictions (see Radelet & Bedau, for example) we can be almost certain that innocent people have been killed by the America states, albeit unwittingly. This is a fact acknowledged by even the most zealous promoters of the death penalty but not one which has been, historically, known to the public at large.

The general ignorance on this point is crucial because, as famously hypothesis by Justice Marshall, it constitutes a fact which, if more widely known and understood throughout the populace, would precipitate a major change in the legal system. If people knew how things really were, they would not accept them. This is an argument that can be equally applied to other scenarios, from international politics to global trade.

It is now worth briefly turning our attention to why these facts, despite being available for almost 20 years, have not established themselves in the public consciousness and asking to what extent is there a media agenda to remain silent on such issues.

These are big questions and ones that I hope to explore at length elsewhere. However, in anticipation of such an analysis, I can suggest that in the light of the recent telecommunications revolution, most significantly the internet, whatever forces have previously been responsible for shaping public opinions are now threatened by the new, free, world-wide flow of information.

Google ‘Tookie Williams’ and you will find a number of sites not just campaigning on his behalf but also informing their readers of these unreported casualties of the system. They point us to specific cases and seem to ask: How much longer are we going to let this happen? How many more people whose guilt remains in doubt, are we willing to execute in the name of retributive justice?

I think that the rise in this global community, educating each other on issues and increasing national awarness, is at least partly responsible for the large number of participants at today’s vigils.

However, I don’t wish to speculate on whether this trend will continue. Whether the continued advancement in communication technology and web literacy will eventually lead to a critical mass of public opinion away from the death penalty, I am not qualified to say.

The argument taken above, the possibility of miscarriage, is one that could be adopted both by those protestors who claim Tookie is innocent based on the facts of the case (as they see them,) and those anti-death penalty campaigners with more general concerns of ‘potential miscarriage’. These cries of ‘potential miscarriage’ are the product of the uncertainty inherent in any legal system based on ‘reasonable doubt’.

My objection to Tookie’s execution is different. It is based on the same principle by which I object to all executions, even those of the confessed killer. I believe in the possibility that people can change.

From my perspective, Tookie’s guilt (or lack of guilt) is a secondary issue. Even if future technologies eliminated all doubt from convictions, I would still object to the death penalty in all cases. In the remainder of this blog I hope to explain this stance and show why, in my view, Tookie’s life is a justification of my faith.
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Tookie was almost the definition of the reformed character. Over the course of his incarceration he transformed himself from a violent, anti-social young man into a highly creative, anti-gang campaigner. He told children of his past; he wanted them to learn from the mistakes of a misspent youth .For this he received widespread applause. He became, in effect a living challenge to everything he used to be.

For the twenty-something years Tookie spent on death row, going from one lengthy appeals process to the next, he would have had ample time to reflect on his deeds and contemplate what he would have done differently. He had the opportunity to educate himself and, in a very practical sense, give something back to the society from which he had taken. We can ask ourselves, to what extent was the man who started that journey of change two decades ago, the same person who was put to death today?

It is slightly ironic that, by having such appeals, the US has, in trying to minimise the possibility of mistakes, only served to create an inhumane system of allowing the defendant the time to change while remaining unwilling to recognise and respond to that change. This is simply not an issue in countries such as China and Saudi Arabia, where appeals processes are severely limited and killings carried out shortly (sometimes instantly) after verdicts. The only stays of execution in such barbaric regimes are those taken to sharpen the blade or reload the rifle.

It could be argued that the release of some children’s books does not absolve one from a time spent in criminal pursuits and that Tookie should not be given any preferential treatment over his less literate (though not necessarily less remorseful) fellow inmates. This, of course, a perfectly valid point but it only leaves us to question: What could be done, given the confines of his life behind bars, to demonstrate a significant change in his character? If we deny to others the possibility of change and redemption what cost does this have to society?

As I have mentioned elsewhere a lot will depend on your thoughts about humans in general. If you think that some people are just ‘bad seeds’ or even inherently evil, and that they are predisposed to commit terrible acts to those around them, then you may quite legitimately conclude that they will always be this way and view their deaths as a relief to society.

I think, however, that not only is this view deeply superstitious, it is not even (to the best of my knowledge) backed by conventional religious teachings. The Bible may say that we are born with original sin, but it doesn’t claim that any of us are created with a uniquely heavy burden.

With the possible exception of psychopaths (whose existence can be viewed from a medical perspective and who should be in secure hospitals), noone is born with an innate violent, anti-social tendencies. This is not just the view of the idealistic liberal, it is one based on the realities of our evolutionary inheritance – we are social creatures and those that couldn’t get along with others in their group were simply outperformed a long time ago. N.b. This is not to say that inter-species conflict does not exist in other social animals – it does. However confrontations are characterized by both the adoption of strict rules that protect individuals and the willingness not to hold grudges. The male Stag, for example, will fight another when challenged (i.e. for status) but the hostility will end as soon as one exhibits a submissive posture and the defeated foe will not be treated differently to the rest of the social group as a result of the encounter.

By broad measure, our personalities can be seen as flexible adaptations to the world around us. The existence of killers in our societies could be attributed to many environmental factors, from childhood abuses to substances misuse, o, more generally, to a culture of aggressively competitive consumption and the existance of technologies that make homicide easier then it naturally would be.

I'm not implying that the inmate is not responsible for the crime they have committed. Our society creates many types safety nets which are intended to help those with problems before they turn to crime. If they choose to ignore these, they do so wilfully. However, once a person has fallen through the holes and, as a result, been subjected to an appropriate punishment, does this does not mean there is no way back for them?

If we are presented with a an prisoner, such as Tookie, who invested their time incarcerated into improving themselves, and, in spite of conditions being against them (let’s face it, prison isn’t primary school), have become a person who, should we meet them under alternate circumstances, we would consider them a worthwhile human being – what then does this mean to us?

I’ll begin by saying what it shouldn't mean. It shouldn't mean that we start campaigning for a prisoner’s release just because they have, for example, completed a correspondence course of advanced ethics. Even if the prisoner grows as a result, custodial sentences exist for practical reasons. Parole boards should remain in place but they should not be viewed as judges on the matters of humanity.

In my opinion though, it does mean that we must re-examine our relationship with the death-row inmate by answering some fundamental question: Do we, as a society, have a responsibility to accept people for, not only who they were, but who they have become? Can we bring ourselves to accept the possibility of change in others as see it? What would it mean to kill someone once we have accepted this change within them?

Tookie is dead now, and even if subsequent evidence clears his name, this will not bring him back. Instead his life, both in and out of prison, should be one seen as one that dramatically demonstrates the potential for growth in all of us. He showed us that the social spirit can rise up in even the most dehumanising conditions.

Armchair Anthropology

A close friend of mine has the dubious pleasure of working with the general public. Although this vocation causes great frustrastions , he believes that it bestows on him a level of authority when generalising about people or pondering the lot of humankind. He does this quite a lot and the verdicts reached are always less then flattering to their subject. Any appeals to the defence of the species are always met by the rebuttal: "I work with these people, I should know".

In the following blog I will attempt to examine the credentials of my friend's expertise by asking a different but (I hope), parallel question: Would I consider someone who watches a lot of programmes to be an expert on the medium of television? If not, what knowledge would he be required to demonstrate before I could confer this status upon him?

For the purposes of this analogy I shall assume that, aside from size and design, all televisions are technically identical - predating not only plasma screens but also the advent of the colour set.
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Let us begin by assuming that the 'expert' in question has a detailed knowledge of the programmes being broadcast. These would include not just the popular, ratings leaders like the soap-opera or sitcom, but also familiarity with the more obscure cable channels and cult viewings. In this respect my friend is very qualified. Standing on a busy street in any major city for a single day, one is likely to view a broad cross section of society; do that job for four years and you would experience this variety in all it's weird and wonderful forms.

However, I would also expect my expert to be aware not just of this season's scheduling but also the shows of yesteryear, even those predating his viewing years - perhaps as far back as the dawn of the medium. Armed with this working knowledge of the history of broadcasting , my expert would be able to recount for me not just the development of the genre, in terms such as the quantity, variety and complexity of the shows, but also to identify landmarks shows and their effect.

My friend is well informed and has a good grasp of human history though, naturally, nothing approaching the complexity described above - I doubt even the most widely-read anthropologist does. Therefore, by this measure, the duration of his current employment serve as the limits to his expertise.

But what of our telly-addict? If he could demonstrate an encyclopaedic knowledge of the small screen, it's scope and span - from American Idol to Z-cars, would we consider it appropriate for him to comment on all matters relating to TV? In my opinion, the answer is no. To qualify as a true 'TV expert', as opposed to a mere cultural authority, we should demand much more.
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Firstly, the expert should have an understanding of the hardware of the television equipment, the transmitting apparatus itself. This would include not only the many influences on it's design but also it's function - it's raison d'etre. ( In this analogy, though we cannot state with certainty that John Logie Baird does not exist, his status as creator is left unproven).

My expert would be able to tell me of the technologies that predate the television and how these tools embodied problem solving techniques that the TV would incorporate and expand upon. How, for example, the invention of the radio 'solved the problem' of being unable to communicate with someone when outside of their auditory range.

I would also want an account pf the context of it's creation and the influence on it's design. This would include not only the immediate circumstances but also a description of how social factors, such as the increases in leisure time and disposable income, created a market for it's existence.

Finally, while I would stop short of asking my expert to list the individual pieces of apparatus needed to assemble a working television, I might ask for an explanation of how these components and their specific arrangement within the box provide the parameters of the technology and, consequently, the limits of what is broadcast. TVs can, for example, only broadcast images in two-dimensions.

In the same way that my lamenting about the loss of the 'golden age of television' might lead the expert to seek parallels in today's more varied schedule; so too, if I complained about the lack of interactive programmes, might he point on how technological boundaries make these impractical (though, in the digital age, they are becoming less so).

However, just as our square-eyed friend cannot, in any Gestaltian sense, be declared an expert, neither can the repairman who hates all shows. He would need to meet all the criterion above demonstrating an appropriate breadth of knowledge.

With regard to television, I have no doubt that there are some people who would meet these requirements (though they might not be great fun on a night out). However, when we approach a subject as complex as human behaviour, this becomes a lot to ask of one person. So, just as I question my friend's authority on the subject of human nature, so too would I be dubious about the psychologist with poor social skills or the hermetic neurologist.
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My standards have been set high for a reason. Most of us make no such claim to a unique insight into the human heart and mind, our wisdom is these matters ispurely practical – allowing us to get on in life and select only our favourite shows. However, dangers occur when we allow the credentials of the self-proclaimed expert to go unchallenged.

The scientist who identifies the expression of a gene is not necessarily in a position to use his findings to make policy recommendations to government. If I did my own screwdriver-research on the set in my living room and discovered the relationship between the cathode ray tube and the pictures on my screen, I don’t think this would this give me authority to say what makes the best viewing.

However, this is not meant to lend weight to those who, in denying the realities of human nature, call for unrealistic solutions to social problems. The utopias they hope to broadcast are essentially untransmitable; their failures testify to this. Denying a TV is flat screened does not alter the range of images that can be displayed on it.

In conclusion, my view of humanity is one of a capacious species; it's history forming a long and complex tapestry. It is this perspective that forms the hypothetical job description of my expert. Those that see the their fellow beings in more discriminate terms might expect considerably less.

How do we sleep while our beds are burning?

My mother likes entertaining friends and family at her house. She is what you might consider a great hostess. Whenever she has guests she makes their wellbeing her prime concern: Do you have enough to drink? Do you want some more pudding? Are you okay sat there? (to me, who is usually sat on the floor due to lack of seats).

Her approach is not born of pretension. She is not, to the best of my knowledge, interested in being known as for her social grace. In fact, given her feminist credentials, the idea of being viewed as the stereotypical woman of the house would be one she would actively shun. Instead, the care and consideration shown to her guests stems from a genuine desire to ensure that they are happy. Only when she has fulfilled this need to her own satisfaction is she free to relax and attend to her own needs.

This is not to say that my mother is overly fawning; the kind of hostess whose over exuberant displays of attention only serve to make their guests uncomfortable. She is much more subtle then that. However, by the end of a long visit or a large gathering, as well as being visibly contented she is also noticeably tired.

I have, to a certain extent, inherited this characteristic, though my way of dealing with it is entirely different. I rarely entertain guests and, when I do, they are usually close friends or family. It's not that I don't enjoy the company of others (well, it's not just that), but I know that when I invite people to my house I will not be able to relax as I normally do. This is less of an issue when the visitors are close family and friends; I can trust that, when their needs arise, they can take care of themselves - treating my house as their house.
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Altruism is distracting. If, while trying to watch the latest episode of Lost, I could hear someone crying from another room in the house I would not be able to enjoy the show. The sobs would be a sound of immediacy; of importance; of a greater significance then what I was doing. Continuing my viewing in these circumstances would seem cold and self-indulgent. If appropriate, I would be compelled to offer my assistance to the person in need and, only once I had helped to rectify their problem, could I return to my vicariously-mysterious island in the Pacific. My only alternative would be to turn up the volume on my TV and hope that, in time, I would forget what I had heard; that the images on the screen would replace those in my mind.

If you learn of a problem, be in personal, social or environmental, and you know that, in some way, you could make a contribution toward the solution; your conscious decision not to do so is one that also involves costs. It is impossible to unlearn something, but you can attempt to forget by a process of distracting yourself in the varieties of life. However, this suppression has a ‘mental cost’, the extent of this cost plays itself out in a number of ways in people’s lives and I will explore them at another time. The point I am making here is this: while ignorance may be bliss, wilful apathy is not.

I try to solve some problems as I learn of them. I regularly write letters to prisoners of conscience, I recycle, I boycott Coca-Cola, I give regular donations to charity (though not to the extent that it diminishes my ability to afford the frivolous things I enjoy). Performing these activities is not a great infringement on my quality of life, but they allow me to say, with a certain self-satisfaction that ‘I do my bit’. When presented with a further problem I can justify to myself the claims that ‘my life is already is full of responsibilities’ and ‘that someone else needs to pick up the slack on this one’.

This leads me to three questions: To what extent can this attitude be seen as a valid one? Where do our responsibilities towards one another, the communities we live in and world in general end? How many problems can one person be reasonably expected to solve in the course of their life?
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Taken from the perspective of a single life, the problems of the world are infinite and insurmountable. Between my ten o’clock protest at the weapons fair and my ten-thirty stint at the local soup kitchen I am unlikely to find the time to intercept a Norwegian whaling vessel. The economics of both time and space demand that problems are compartmentalized and institutionalised. This gives birth to charities with as specific yet varied remits as The British Hedgehog Preservation Society and Shelter Cymru – supporting badly housed people in Wales.

Although they may receive limited funding from governments and private fund (such as the lottery commission), these institutions only continue to exist because of the financial support they receive from altruistic individuals. These supporters give money because they are moved by the issues; they pay others to work on their behalf to solve the problems of the world. This has the cathartic effect of answering that nagging psychic question ‘Should I be doing more?’.

This is, no doubt, a good thing, providing both personal and social benefits. There is little surprise that the practice is encouraged by all major religions. However, this approach only removes the question by degree. We now ask ourselves: ‘To what extent should I sacrifice my personal needs to give financial support to others?’

Consider my mother’s little get together. Let us assume that there is an optimal number of people that she can entertain for an optimal length of time, say four people for four hours. Any more then this and either her health or her guest’s happiness would be compromised; any less and she could have invited someone else. Her hospitality produces a gain of sixteen ‘happiness hours’.

Now, suppose that my mother could afford to hire some help for the evening - Jeeves the butler (for no other reason then the name makes me smile). For simplicity’s sake, Jeeves works at the same rate as my mother (there are a multitude of reasons why he may not but, again, I will explore these at another time). Once Jeeves is busy serving drinks and propping cushions my mother would be free to do what she needed, though nothing more could be done to improve her guest’s stay. From this arrangement we are able to infer two further scenarios.

In the first my mother decides to throw a larger party. What argument could then be made for my mother to invite another four guests and wait on them herself thereby increasing the total of happiness hours to thirty-two. Why stop there? Assuming she could afford it, why not hire a small army of Jeeveses who could bring happiness to a banquet of hundred?

Conversely, is my mother was contented with the butlered gathering of four, to what extent is she now free to act as she wishes? Anything she does with her newly liberated time which jeopardises the well being of the guest could be viewed as counterproductive. If, for example, she was now able to get drunk, insult her guests and spit in the punch, one could legitimately question the wisdom of hiring help.

This leads us to the idea of the net impact of altruism. Today I could give everything I own to charity and shortly die of starvation, or I could give ten percent of my earnings for the the rest of my life - Which would amount to more?

Similarly, I could give X in direct debits to environmental charities yet continue to use my four wheel drive and consume Y amount of pollution emitting, non-renewable resources. How can I be sure I am solving rather then contributing to the problem? To what extent am I simply trying to balance the equation of my life? Do such reliable, independent ways of assessing our net impact on the world exist?
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I enjoy writing letters to prisoners of conscience as my mother enjoys preparing meals for others. These are emotional responses that, in this instance, needn’t be intellectualized any further. However, I wouldn’t enjoy having substantially less money because, in a moment of crazed generosity, I had given it away in to charity.

In my mother’s hypothetical banquet she would have got pleasure from seeing the happiness of her guests. They would also be able to thank her for their evening, recognising that the Jeeveses were at her expense and for their benefit. No doubt this positive feedback would also be rewarding.

At this point the analogy fails when applied to the world of large, multinational charities. We can never be completely certain that the money we give is helping to finance a sanitation project in Uganda or the mortgage repayment on the Chief Exec’s detached house in Kent. While there may be something slightly distasteful in the new approach of charities, where supporters ‘adopt’ a project, animal or even a child, and are given regular feedback on their progress, it is a rare individual who gives confidentially yet substantially.

I do things to help the world and those around me, but does the fact that I could do more necessarily mean that I should? Would the loss of my leisure time and disposable income lead to a brightly-burning, but ultimately short-lived burst of altruism?

As with most things, the proof of the altusim-pudding is very much in it's eating. If you enjoy giving to charity you will continue doing so; if you don't you probably won't. However, one could question the extent to which those who pretend to delight in giving away their money and time serve to provide excuses (however unintentionally) to those who are more honest about their motivations. How often do you hear people claim that they leave charity work to those who enjoy doing it? At the risk of creating a nation of martyrs, I would welcome more honesty on this subject. The existence of a world of problems does not presuppose an elite of willing problem solvers. Before the end we may all have to take our turn as Jeeves, however reluctantly.

Hail the Philosopher Kings!

Today, the main news story in the UK is the law lords ruling that the goverment is not allowed to use evidence that may have been extracted under torture against terror suspects. Since the law lords represent the highest legal authority in the land the government has do choice but no accept their judgment (governments are not able to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights).

I am interested in human rights (HR), including the presentation of HR issues in the media and the attitude of the public towards them. I have campaigned on behalf of Amnesty International in both a personal and professional capacity over the last five years, this has included speaking to people face-to-face on the street about the work of Amnesty and HR issues in general, organising public events to promote the work of Amnesty, monitoring the coverage of HR issues in the local and national press and lobbying my local politician on behalf of Amnesty.

Amnesty's remit is fairly simple. Essentially it boils down to this: On 1oth December 1948, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). This is a list of thirty articles which proclaim, in clear and simple terms, the rights of every single person on earth. Amnesty aims to promote an awareness of these articles throughout the global populace and to ensure that all world governments are abiding by them, taking action against governments whenever necessary.

Taken individually these articles can be seen as uncontroversial. Who but the most ardent fascists could argue against Article 1 for example? That 'All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights' is seen, certainly in our society as a truism in the literal sense and the foundation for liberal democracy. There is simply no coherent logical argument against this.

While campaigning I would show these articles to people by way of explaining the work of Amnesty. For many it was the first time they had seen the document (The UDHR has been famously referred to as 'the world's best kept secret'). Noone who I spoke to had an instinctive objection to any of the articles, indeed most expressed how natural and reasonable they sounded.

The complications arise when the articles are taken together as a package and the frictions between them occur. Consider Article 17 ('Everyone has the right to own property') Vs Article 25 ('Everyone has the right to an adequate standard of living, including housing'). In Monsterland, a small state with a population of only a hundred yet still bound by the UDHR, all the homes are owned by one person, Shion. Since Shion bought the houses legally (using the gold he recovered from the Meka Dragon, for those of you interested) he is free to do with them as he pleases, including turfing out the current occupants. Making a country homeless is, of course a violation of Article 25 but taking Shion's property from him is a violation of Article 17. What is to be done? Well, I can happily inform the concerned reader that Monsterland has developed a complex system of what amounts to squatter's rights and the restriction of monopolies on property. Such compromises can be viewed as legal buffers between the articles and, as such, are give their legitimacy by the the more ambiguous Article 29 - 'Everyone has duties to the community'; what I call the 'safety valve article'.

Article 29 can be summed up as follows: Everyone has rights but, where the rights of one person potentially interfere with those of another, it is the job of law to 'limit' these rights with a view to maintaining a stable and secure society. The nature and form of these laws can be seen to be, to a certain extent, culturally relative and, as such, this article can be seen as the basis for global legal variance. As way of example, consider Article 19 -'Freedom of expression' Vs Article 12 - 'Noone should be subjected to...attacks upon his honour and reputation' and the libel laws this conflict precipitates. Even in countries as legally similar at the US and UK the nature of these libel law is vastly different.

However, it is also this article that provides the legal cover for governments to legitimize more draconian laws. The Patriot Act in the US, for example, could be viewed as a reinterpretation of the battle lines between Article 3 - 'Everyone has the right to life' Vs Article 12 'The right to privacy' or, to put another way, 'to what extent can you justify reading people's private emails under the pretext that you making sure they aren't talking plotting terrorist activities?'

To bring it back to the subject in hand, the debate presupposed by the media in the coverage of the UK government's ambition to legitimize the use of evidence of the use of torture against terrorist subjects was of the 'Article 3 Vs Article 5 (The right not to be tortured) variety'. To what extent can be use such dubious evidence be used with a view to preventing innocent people being murdered in a 7/7 type attack? This is highlighted by the fact that when politicians such as Charles Clarke are accused of undermining human rights they always coming back with
the 'what about about the rights of those who have died?' line.

The effect of framing the debate in this way is that, if taken to a vote, I believe the British public would be in favour of using evidence used under torture. In this respect, the ruling could be viewed as an undemocratic one made by an unrepresentative institution. It was not without a sense of irony that many people who would ordinarily question the legitimacy of the lords found themselves welcoming today's ruling.

For me, this was never the debate. Torture is not just abhorrent, it is illogical. Under extreme duress people will confess to anything. The things they say in these circumstances not only have no legitimacy, they have no reliability and are, therefore, useless for the purposes of evidence gathering. This fact has been demonstrated consistently by the false testimonies of innocent parties seeking to escape from cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments. If put to the public in these terms, I think there would be a consensus in favour of the lords' verdict.

So, it returning their ruling, it was not just with reference to universal human rights that the lords justified their opinions but also this fundamental flaw inherent in the practice of torture. Today was then not just a good day for humanity, but also a good one for rational thought.

Blog on blogs

I have been encouraged by others to document my thoughts and opinions. A blog seems the best way to do this, and a ‘blog on blogs’ the most logical place to start.
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The blogs that I have read generally fall into four categories: self promotion, self-obsession, issues, and creativity. Obviously there are many that combine these themes to varying effect.

Self-promotion: The writer belives that their life has meaning because other people know about it and that the more people that read his/her blog the better, regardless of the content or the feedback. No detail of their life is too trivial to be shared and is complete with a a list of things that they like/dislike and a picture of their face. Events in their life are reported as facts and no critical examination of them is taken.

Self-obsession: As above, though, while the promoter wants people to care, the obsessor works on the assumption that they actually do. These blogs are typically complete with numerous pictures of the writer looking forlornly off camera, into the middle distance. Again, the 'self' in question is taken as the starting point and any reflection that does take place will probably be of the 'Why am I so different to everyone else variety?'. This is primarily the realm of the adolescent.

Issues: This can be anything from 'save the bus route' to 'save your soul' (via 'save the pound'). The interest they elicit is likely to be entirely subjective. You actively look for these sites rather then stumble upon them and most probably have your beliefs confirmed by them. There is, however, a massive variety in the quality of the writing on these sites which is largely independent of the issues they are concerned with.

Creativity: Music, art, photography, creative writing, poetry, journalism. Those sites that share something original because they hope others will appreciate it. As with 'issues' the interest they generate will be subjective, but for the reader there is a heightened sense of having 'discovered' something that they like.

My favourite blogs are those that take the self-obsessed format and approach it from the creativity angle. The authors of these blogs don't just tell you about their lives, they critique them and say what they mean to them. Instead of just listing the things they are interested in or the issues that motivate them they may explain their origins and make an attempt to justify them through essay and reasoned argument. They may share their ambitions with you, but they also speculate on why they have these particular ambitions.

Since blogs are usually confidential the depth and accuracy of the personal detail contained in them is largely irrelevant. The content achieves it’s validity in its ability to resonate with the reader’s own life and either allow him to view it from a slightly different perspective or to promote further discussion on the subject in question.

This form, which I will call the ‘creative self’, can still be seen as distinct from an 'issue blog' because the author, although writing about himself and his way of life is not trying to convince the reader of anything. When the events of the author’s life touch upon issues of universal importance to us all I believe we can learn a lot from a personal assessment of the origins and meaning.

I have found that these blogs often work best when the author is brave enough to be honest but grounded enough to not take themselves too seriously. I believe that almost every subject matter benefits from a light-hearted approach, especially in the written form. Whenever I read something I want it to make me think or make me laugh; my favourite blogs do both.

Naturally, I hope for my writing to take that form which I most enjoy reading, and so it is to this category of creative-self blogs that I aspire. It is a lofty ambition and one with which I will require assistance. Therefore I welcome feedback of all kinds, link to further reading where appropriate and criticism when constructive.

I have opinions and beliefs that I will attempt to justify to my own satisfaction but, should you disagree with me or see a weakness in my argument please tell me so. All I ask is that noone comes with an agenda other that the free exchange of ideas.