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June 21, 2005 1) I suspect that fellow columnist Robert Paul Reyes has gotten some nasty letters about his constant bashing of the now-infamous runaway bride, Jennifer Wilbanks, and missing Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway. I certainly understand his points, and I agree with him all the way. I said as much, without coming out and saying so, in my recent column “Asha Degree Is Still Missing”. I’m wondering, though, if I could get Robert to quit beating that dead horse and help me prove another point—that the death penalty in the United States has been used to avenge the white woman more than any other victim. Considering that nearly 80 percent of all lives avenged by executions are those of white people, and the premium placed on white lives in our society, it’s not too-far fetched to believe that would be the case. I haven’t been able to find a victim breakdown anywhere, and it’s possible that I overlooked it somehow. But it’d be interesting to see if my theory holds up. The task isn’t for Robert alone, by the way. Anyone else reading is more than welcome to share what they know. 2) Texas governor Rick Perry recently signed Senate Bill 60, which will give jurors there the option of sentencing convicted capital defendants to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Texas is one of two death-penalty states that does not have life without parole as a sentencing option—New Mexico, which rarely uses the death penalty, being the other—a fact that has been cited as the primary reason the state is the free world’s leading executioner. Although critics charge that life without parole will encourage defendants to go through lengthy trials instead of seeking plea deals with the hope of getting out of jail in forty years, life without parole will give juries a non-lethal option to dealing with capital murder—first-degree murder or murder in the commission of a second felony. Considering that the Supreme Court just recently overturned a death sentence, for the second time, primarily because Dallas County’s district attorney’s office documented their policies of excluding certain ethnic groups from capital juries, it’s unthinkable that Texas has gone this long without life without parole. On the same day, Perry also signed House Bill 90, which will mandate a change in how the death of condemned prisoners is recorded. Currently, death certificates for the condemned list the cause of death as a homicide. The new law will require the cause of death to be listed as a judicially ordered execution. As much as I oppose the death penalty, and as painful as it would be for the families of the condemned, it makes sense to do this. Not only is it more accurate, it also squarely places the accountability for that death where it belongs, on the shoulders of the state. Texas officially enters the 20th Century when both laws take effect September 1. 3) Happy twenty-fifth birthday to Pac-Man, the yellow dot-gobbler who has gobbled up billions of quarters in the arcades over the years. As video games have evolved from two-dimensional scrollers and aim-and-fire affairs into nearly lifelike, immersive simulations, Pac-Man has withstood the test of time, thanks to its relatively simple and addictive game play. Pac-Man’s popularity has gone far beyond video games. The game was turned into an animated TV series, spun off several other games (including Ms. Pac-Man), and was the subject of the classic Buckner and Garcia hit “Pac-Man Fever”. And when Namco released its Namco Museum series of video-game compilations for the PlayStation in the 1990s, the Pac-Family enjoyed a renaissance of sorts, as the game was introduced to a new generation of players. Long after the bells and whistles of newer, flashier games wear off, there will still be Pac-Man, gobbling up the dots and gobbling up your time. 4) When the Thunderbirds, the US Air Force’s precision-flying team, hit the road next March, there will be a woman in the formation for the first time. Captain Nancy Malachowski, a 1996 graduate of the Air Force Academy and an F-15E Strike Eagle pilot, was one of four people selected to join the elite flying team for its 2006 show schedule. Captain Malachowski is currently stationed at RAF Lakenheath in England, but was on deployment to Southwest Asia when she received the good news. That a woman was selected to fly among what is considered the air force’s cream of the crop speaks volumes to Captain Malachowski’s ability. Even more important, though, is the fact that the air force recognized it, and will allow her to use those skills to dazzle audiences around the world. She begins training on the Thunderbirds’ aircraft of choice, the legendary F-16 Fighting Falcon, in November. 5) The US Army recently recognized the heroism of two other women, when it awarded Sergeant Leigh Ann Hester the Silver Star and Specialist Ashley Pullen the Bronze Star for helping protect a US supply convoy against a large insurgent force in a firefight south of Baghdad back in March. Hester’s Silver Star is the first to ever be awarded to a woman involved in an actual combat situation. The military police unit she is in moved through enemy fire to clear the trenches from which the insurgents were attacking. She was responsible for killing three of the twenty-seven insurgents who died in the fight. To understand what this means, the Silver Star is the third-highest medal for gallantry in the American order of military medals, and the Bronze Star falls immediately behind. Only the Medal of Honor and each service’s variant of the Distinguished Service Cross rank higher. Those are high honors indeed, especially considering that there are a lot of people opposed to having women fighting on the front lines. 6) Considering the achievements of the three military heroines that I listed in Points 4 and 5, you would think that the media would play them up and saturate their coverage with their stories. These are white women who are serving their country, have done so with distinction, and without great fanfare or fuss. With no offense to Danica Patrick, the woman who finished fourth in this year’s Indianapolis 500, these women put their lives on the line everyday, not just for themselves or their families but for an entire nation. This is the kind of positive news the media needs to be focusing on. And it’s positive attention that white women, particularly, could use in the wake of so much bad news. ------------ About the author: Claxton Graham has written a number of articles for Useless Knowledge. He works as a business systems analyst. 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