Sunday Blog: Tookie, Club News and more!
Ok, let’s do this thing!
-Quick note. I know I haven’t done a newsletter in a while, I’ll get to it. I’ve been totally forgetting about it, and I missed a lot of awesome stuff to remind people about. I’ll figure out. Weekly might be too often.
- There’s a CLUB UPDATE, featuring personal news, and some business stuff about Yirmumah. So Club Members, you know where to go. If your not a club member, it’s never too late! - LINK!
- DAILY GRIND - People are dropping like flies in the Daily Grind Competition. And YES, I will update the graphic. I’m holding off because I think there are going to be some more. As it stands now, the judges need to add like 2 people to the loser section as well. I have a feeling more will be coming as we get into this holiday season. What, we got like 5 down in ONE week. Unheard of. More coming….
Sorry to get all serious here for a minute… but it’s on my mind…
TOOKIE WILLIAMS: TO LIVE OR DIE IN SAN QUENTIN?
I’ve been thinking about the death penalty a lot this week. It’s such a complicated subject. So political. And it goes to show just how flawed our legal system really is. I wander to myself how many truly innocent people have died. It HAS happened. Such a complicated, messy, messy thing. Now, for Tookie Williams, should he die? Well, he was sentenced to death, so I guess so. BUT, there in lies the problem I have with the death penalty….
It’s been too long. He’s been on death row for how long?? If we’re going to have a death penalty, I think it should be carried out in a timely manner. Letting someone live this long, and also allowing them to communicate with the outside world and influence people, for good AND bad, it’s not right. Tookie Williams, after all these years says he didn’t commit those crimes. Fine. But he does admit that he hurt a lot of people. And the gang he founded, probably ended up destroying thousands of innocent lives. If it were my law, people responsible for helping to destroy thousands of innocent lives, should be put to death FAST. Like, long before they could write a damn children’s book. WTF??? I mean, we’re living in a world now, where prisoners just walk out of prison!!! So the problem here isn’t Tookie Williams. It’s the death penalty.
I feel like– if someone killed someone in my family, I’d want them to die most likely, and thank god it’s never happened to me, but from all the statements I’ve witnessed from victims of violent crime, I guess I can say it’s so. In fact, I’d probably want to get revenge MYSELF. It’s just the way I roll. But I tell you… Tookie Williams should probably be allowed to live in prison for the rest of his days. Not because he’s innocent, but because our legal system is MESSED UP.
I can’t support the death penalty because it’s flawed. If we’re going to have it, people should die swiftly, but only if you know 100% they did it. Which is RARE. Plus, there is something to be said for letting a guy rot until his old age in a cell somewhere…. but that doesn’t happen either, does it? I mean, we live in this pussified society where we let DEATH ROW people write children’s books and get nominated for noble peace prizes. And if that’s where we live, then well, we should let it roll and let em keep this up. Right?
Let some cannibal on death row write a book telling other FINE YOUNG CANNIBALS out there not to eat people.
Johnny Cash may have said all best….
San Quentin, what good do you think you do?
Do you think I’ll be different when you’re through?
You bent my heart and mind and you may my soul,
And your stone walls turn my blood a little cold.San Quentin, may you rot and burn in hell.
May your walls fall and may I live to tell.
May all the world forget you ever stood.
And may all the world regret you did no good.
December 11th, 2005 at 11:07 am
Wow, the Tookie Williams thing…..very complicated.
Here’s my take.
For the children’s books and renouncing gangs…..possible commutation to life in prison. He might not mean it, and the books were co-wrote by a woman who’s obviously in love with him. Still, he IS co-founder of the Crips and his credibility with wannabe gangbangers is high.
Yet……he never expressed remorse for the people he killed. He continues to claim his innocence in the face of overwhelming evidence. For lack of remorse, let him fry.
As for the length of time….it’s needed in order to allow all necessary appeals to occur. Some people have gotten out of jail because it’s been proved that they didn’t do it.
December 11th, 2005 at 12:56 pm
I want to either agree or argue, but I don’t really know. I mean, I was raised in a very pacifist Canadian household. I don’t really know about an American issue like that, there’s so much violence in the whole culture that I’ve just never been in contact with (even being from Toronto.)
Although, I think people like Karla Homolka should get a real life sentence, instead of the 13 years they claim is a life sentence.
December 11th, 2005 at 1:56 pm
I think there should be a clause input into the death penalty laws. If a man is nominated for the Nobel friggin’ Peace Prize, I think it’s worthwhile for the world to have him alive as long as he can be, imprisoned or not. That is all.
December 11th, 2005 at 3:29 pm
>>>nominated for the Nobel friggin’ Peace Prize,
Um, you DO realize that there is a huge number of people that can nominate for a peace prize, right? It’s not meaningful. Plus, nominations are supposed to be secret.
December 11th, 2005 at 3:54 pm
So he was nominated. So what? He should still be executed as the cold blooded murderer he is. Then again I think anyone involved with a gang should be executed.
December 11th, 2005 at 4:15 pm
This will sound crazy— but I’m actually sensitive to the plight of gang activity out west. When I lived out there, I actually became good friends with a few gang members who were in the Crips from the Coachella Valley — I think two of the guys I knew actually went to jail for drug trafficking from Mexico…. but anyway, life in poor neighborhoods SUCKS. And this is what breeds the gang mentality and it’s being handed down from generation to generation now. The funny thing is, most street gangs stay out of trouble these days and just have minor scuffles… but there was a time when it was ALL about fighting, constantly…. then the Crips I guess got so tough and big, that the other gangs couldn’t beat them in brawling, so they started using guns to equal things out.
With Tookie… the thing is, he said he never did it. There were other gang members who implicated him in the murders to save their own skins and actually get special treatment deals for themselves, that I guess continue to this day. That doesn’t seem quite right to me. If they had Tookie on camera actually committing the murders, BOOM, he should die. But this guy has been in jail a LONG time now, and I think he probably would have repented by now– he’s an old man… he’s not looking to get out. But if you were put away for something you didn’t do, and on deathrow, would you EVER confess to something you didn’t do?
If you knew you were gonna die no matter what, and you KNOW you did it, most of the deathrow guys usually beg for forgiveness in the end… just like the guy who that movie “Dead Man Walking” was based on…. he told the nun lady he never did the murders… and she believed him… but in the end, I think he confessed his sins so he could be forgiven by god or something…
Maybe Tookie will do the same thing.. but if he doesnt…. damn… I just think, he’s SO old now, why not just keep him in jail until he dies inside.
December 11th, 2005 at 5:36 pm
I have no respect for people who can’t even be man enough to learn how to stand on their own without any homies, boys, dawgs, crew or bro’s watching their backs. I’ve grown up poor, without knowing if we’ll have power the next week or enough to make food or even enough to get to school on yet I never went into a gang and started attacking, murdering, robbing, holding hostages or shooting a gun to get what I want.
Tookie may have never admitted he did it but he was still convicted by a jury of his peers and in mock trials carried out by several law schools using the same evidence. The gang members all corroborated the events of the murders which could not have been done unless they planned what to say well in advance and for any possible problems. That alone tells me that they all testified to the actual events and not some fabricated story. Then there was the physical evidence itself which shows he was indeed the trigger man. So he’s an old man, he’s still a convicted murderer who shows no remorse for his actions. You also have to take into account that the Nobel Prize announcements are supposed to be kept secret until the board is ready to announce them. He has had it released in order to influence people to think “Wow, he’s a Nobel Prize contender so why are we putting him to death?” and sadly enough, people are stupid enough to believe him. If you watch the news you will see that he was nominated simply to draw attention to his case and to show that the death penalty is wrong. If the governor bows to his celebrity friends it will be sign that Hollywood has finally completed its attempts to influence politics.
If I knew I was going to die for a crime I was convicted of I would at least be man enough to admit my crime. With your pointing to the movie Dead Man Walking you are prooving that a man will maintain his innocence until he knows it’s not working any longer.
Maybe he will but since he’s not a man of honor he will probably say he did not do it as the insert the needle. Yes, he’s an old man now but he wasn’t when he was convicted. It’s a sad thing when a man can be sentenced to death by his peers and die of old age before his sentence is carried out.
If I get the chance, I will research it further but with my schedule being as it is now with exams and such this week I doubt I will be able to.
December 11th, 2005 at 8:06 pm
I was really looking forward for Allegri to pop, for she did something really sneaky before in her journal and some friends setting thing and they didn’t do anything to her. It would’ve been unfair if she had won…
… thing that probably wouldn’t have happened anyway, because I know D.J.’s gonna win and buy us all booze. x3
December 12th, 2005 at 1:54 am
Daily Grind Challenge: it’s going to come down to DJ vs. Ali Graham. Be warned, DJ, Ali has been called a “comic-making robot.”. This will be epic.
December 12th, 2005 at 2:40 am
I live a few miles from Riochmond, CA and I can tell you that in some places you will get shot for wearing red. A friend of mine grew up in Richmond and fell asleep to gunshots at night. This is different from simply being poor; this is fear for your life. However, even if Tookie hadn’t come along, someone else would have. Bottom line, Gang members are poor souls who feel they have little power over their lives exept through the gang, but they are still subject to our laws. I don’t like the law, but don’t change it because of Tookie.