Bad Boy Goes Good

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, "There are no second acts in American life."

It was a nice quote, but completely untrue.

People re-invent themselves all the time; Richard Nixon, Michael Jackson, Madonna, and several years ago this phenomena has occurred in Thailand, as the 33 year old son of the Interior Minister has been charged with the campaign to keep Thailand's toilets clean.

The perennial bad boy is now known as "Mr Happy Toilet" or Khun Hong-nam Yin-dee.

"I am apologizing publicly for my behavior in the past that might have caused the public not to be happy with me." Wan had been involved in several bar brawls, culminating in the murder of an off-duty policeman. He fled the country until the witnesses suffered collective amnesia. His father previously attempted to install his son in the government as the poster boy to stop drinking and smoking, despite his subscription to both vices. Public outrage forced the young man into early retirement, but the Deputy Minister has high hopes for the nation to forgive and forget and Wan has learn from his past judging from this statements to the Press. "I will work for the nation to show I can correct my past mistakes."

Who knows?

Cruel And Inhuman

In 1999 Clayton Darrell Lockett kidnapped and beat 19-year-old Stephanie Neiman over the theft of her truck.

After she said that she would go to the police, Lockett's accomplices shot and buried her alive. An Oklahoma jury voted for the death penalty.

Last week the prisoner was scheduled to be executed by injection. He tried to kill himself by slashing his wrist and then resisted the prison guards, who tasered him into submission. A needle was stuck in a thigh vein, which collapsed and Lockett suffered a slow and agonzing death calling out "Oh, Man." as he thrived in agony.

No doctors are allowed by the AMA to administer the needles.

The unknown drugs are used since Europe refused to export anything to assist in carrying out the sentence.

This execution was most certainly botched by the prison authorities, however GOP Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian was quick to comment, "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."

Death-row inmates are fighting legal battles to convince the court that the drugs used in these intravenous execution do not kill with mercy.

While most people in the Northeast and Pacific West are not in favor of the death penalty, the Bible Belt states support pro-death as revenge from the Hand of God and Clayton Lockett seemed a good candidate for a fitting punishment.

Other options are electrocution and shooting, but between 1885 and 1930 the Sooner State recorded 147 extrajudicial lynchings of 77 whites, 50 blacks, 14 American Indian, 5 unknowns and a single Chinaman.

A fairly diverse range of races.

The singer Woody Guthrie's father took part in the 1911 hanging of Laura and L.D. Loney from a bridge over the North Canadian River, six miles west and one mile south of Okemah.

The folksinger later wrote these lyrics; "A nickel postcard I buy off your rack / To show you what happens if / You're black and fight back / A lady and two boys hanging / down by their necks / From the rusty iron rigs / of my Canadian Bridge."

So hanging has a history in Oklahoma.

And not a good one.