Author: Danielle Levy

Lawrence Reynolds, Jr., age 43, was sentenced to death for killing his neighbor in 1994. Late last Sunday night he was found unconscious, hours before he was to be executed. How he got the pills and tried to overdose in his death row cell at Ohio State Penitentiary is not known. Governor Ted Strickland has now postponed the execution.
I don’t have much more facts than this, it was a small item in the L.A. Times, but if I did would the postponement of this execution look any less perverse? If he was scheduled to die, in this case a few hours hence, why not let him? Why rescue him only to execute him? Whether or not that’s legally permissible, it’s cruel, unnecessary and reflects our culture’s need for punishment at all costs. Will justice be better served now that he has to die by execution when her recovers?

The President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinajad has called 9-11 a “big lie” saying among others things that the number of casualties has been exaggerated and never published. Earlier he had denied the Holocaust. In both instances one is amazed by a denial of proven facts, particularly by the head of state of a country with such a rich history. Closer to home, a home school mom in Kentucky discovered that the science texts she ordered disputed Darwin’s evolution. As an individual she wasn’t able to buy textbooks issued by mainstream publishers and had to buy them through the company which caters mainly to home-schoolers who are usually Christian. While Christian activists have and are contesting evolution, the accepted view of creation in scientific circles is based on Darwinian evolution.
We now live in a world where one’s opinions and ideology can be promulgated often with greater ease than the facts that would refute them. It is no longer something only rogue leaders spout nor something fundamentalists espouse. Bending or inventing facts to suit one’s own agenda seems to be used by anyone wanting to make their point of view prevail. That places upon us a greater onus to be aware that facts do matter and cannot be misused, and an even greater responsibility to discover what those facts are.

The Jaipur foot comes from the Blagwan Mahaveer Viklang Shayata Samiti organization, no doubt unknown to most of us. Nevertheless, it does something worthwhile, important and wonderful. It provides artificial limbs for people who have been victims of work accidents or land mines, and it provides those limbs free of charge. It’s based in the western desert state of Rajasthan whose capital is Jaipur, hence the name. The person usually goes there and workers take a day or two to fashion an artificial leg or foot. It’s crude, made from locally available materials but it serves its purpose and some can even learn how to run with their new foot. Since it began in 1975 it has fitted around one million people. It costs them about $40 per prosthesis but they do not charge. Now MIT has heard of their work and is trying to adapt it and improve upon it. Problem is in the US cost becomes a major issue, a prosthesis would cost $8,000 or $9,000. It is hoped MIT can provide funding as well as an upgraded technology. Still, it’s remarkable what can be done when profit does not determine outcome.

When two sides are at an impasse, it is as I recall good practice to find some underlying common ground. In the case of healthcare, couldn’t that common ground be what’s good for individual citizens? Couldn’t that criterion if taken seriously usher cutting through the political, philosophical and ideological posturing that has created the impasse? It wouldn’t be easy. It would mean that each side would need to connect to a new mind-set, something difficult in Washington, where winning is often more important than true principle or real common values. It seems the current mind-set leans toward leaving people out, or at least seeing them in utilitarian terms—their votes. Either way, that does not serve the needs of democracy. Whether it is the good of the people or some other underlying criterion, let’s hope one is found lest harm sets in.