anti:freeze

In my online Death Sentencing class at PSU, we were asked to analyze (in an informal post) a film, play, or piece of literature in terms of how it deals with the death penalty debate. I thought I would post my response here:

Most of you probably know the story of Hamlet: A young Danish prince (Hamlet) zealously commits to avenge the murder of his father, the king Hamlet. The king was poisoned at the hands of Claudius - his own brother - who lusted after both the crown and the queen. Claudius quickly marries his brother's widow and takes the crown. Hamlet first learns of the murder when the ghost of the dead king visits him in the castle. He vows to kill his uncle.

While the play does not deal with the death penalty in a modern criminal justice context, it does feature an agent of the state (Hamlet) considering the ultimate penalty as punishment (and revenge) for a murder. In many aspects, the play can be read as a metaphor for the death penalty debate - a dramatization of the political, moral, and social clashes we see today around this issue.

When faced with the opportunity to stab his uncle, Hamlet hesitates. He hears Claudius praying, and he does not want to send Claudius to heaven. What he fails to hear is Claudius' admission that his prayers ring hollow. So long as he keeps the queen and the crown - the wages of his sin - his prayers cannot redeem him. We are forced to ask uncomfortable moral questions. If one believes in the Christian (or other spiritual) concepts of eternal life and redemption, to what extent does the death penalty actually punish? On the flip side: Can a capital offender ever redeem himself, so long as the consequences of his crime remain? In other words, can there ever be redemption so long as the dead remain dead? If not, the death penalty does indeed punish, but it also rings hollow.

Then there is the sticky issue of reasonable doubt. Hamlet cannot be sure his father's ghost was real, or worse, that it was not an evil spirit sent to trick him. So he devises a plan to force a confession from Claudius. With a confession, he can feel just administering the ultimate punishment. When a traveling band of players visits the castle, he has them perform a play that reenacts the murder of his father. While the play is performed, he watches Claudius for a reaction. This raises the thorny issue of executing the innocent, and what kind of ultimate proof is needed before we can administer the ultimate punishment. (And with the devise of the "play within a play," viewers and readers are asked to consider how they "read" the "text" of the main story of "Hamlet." What reaction does it seek? Are we supposed to recognize ourselves?)

This, in turn, raises the issue of moral coherency: Hamlet relies on something akin to our concept of due process, and even still, he cannot quite bring himself to drive in the sword. How can he support the death penalty when he cannot himself administer the punishment?

Perhaps the most heart-wrenching moment is when the slain king's ghost reveals his torment - how he is doomed to wander in purgatory, having been slaughtered without a chance to repent for his sins. Hamlet wants the same for Claudius, as we see in the scene where he decides not to kill him while he prays. In our contemporary context, we see the most brutal of murderers put to sleep in the most humane of ways (though this is debatable as well), while their victims suffered brutal attacks, with no chance to get their affairs in order, pray, or even repent. We must ask: Is this justice? Would a purgatory of "life in prison" be more effective?

Eventually, the violence in "Hamlet" spins out of control, and all the major characters are dead by the play's end.

It is Hamlet's indecision that is widely cited as his "fatal flaw" - the flaw that brings on the mass slaughter. I disagree. I see a deeper conflict at play here: the conflict between educated reason, the natural human instinct for revenge, and morality. This same drama plays out in death penalty debates. Hamlet has returned home from college, and his new, educated reasoning clashes with familiar cultural ways. He cannot determine what is right because he follows three distinct lines of argument, all of which point to different answers.

These distinct lines of reasoning are reflected in current death penalty debates, and I am left wondering how we might find a way for the various dialogues to meet - or at the very least, communicate with one another.

I find it interesting how this sign names the Portland Ordinance number. It is at once authoritative and completely rhetorical - an argument both from and with authority.

It is, when you think about it, a logical fallacy: Amplified music is prohibited because it is prohibited (argument in a circle).

Imagine a city in which signs attempt to convince you of the rightness and justness of their commands. Signs that make brilliant inductive leaps, reasonable inferences, and sound deductive arguments. How would this look? How would we behave?

This time, I really am back. Last time I said this, I ended up sick with pneumonia (while also teaching composition, taking a full course load at PSU, and writing book reviews - yikes. I had days where I worked from 4:00 AM straight through until 8:00 PM, hacking and coughing the whole time.)

See my new posts below, and also see some of my new work over at evidentiary:alchemy.

A quick post to let you know: I have started work on my missing|person site again as well. Check it out.

This sign appeared on the front door of the downtown Abercrombie & Fitch a couple weeks back - a prime example of how the wrong word can sometimes be so absolutely right. Of course, the fact that a "Closed Temporally" sign was taped up to the Abercrombie store (weirdly silent after years of contaminating Pioneer Square with obnoxious bass thumps and techno beats) made it all the more satisfying.

(The sign has since been replaced with a beefcake photo and a corporately designed sign that reads: Abercrombie & Fitch Fall 2006. Damn.)

spilled milk in the downtown Safeway, shot with the Lomo

I have to admit it was beautiful: thick as Elmer's glue; shiny as unchipped nail enamel; its slick surface a stark contrast with the oversugared sticky buns and loaves of spongy white bread. I imagined how fun it would be to slide through it - like one of those Slip-n-Slide plastic sheets we laid out on my lawn as a kid.

shot with the Lomo, using the Tunnelvision lens

When I first saw this staircase, I wondered if the house had been abandoned. Foreclosed, maybe. Or perhaps the owner had died, and nobody cared to take care of the property. Maybe the occupants went missing. Maybe they fled the law. I can't help but imagine scenarios like this.

But then I corrected myself: Why would anyone build stairs as they hurried out of a home they never planned to live in again?

The unfinished wood, the lack of rails: both seemed almost improvised, finished in a hurry. This house was in transition - maybe from a single to multi-family home. The stairs represented a beginning, not an end.

Funny how beginnings and endings can look the same.

two doors, photographed with my Lomo

I want to press my body against these doors and try to peer through them, like giant 3D glasses. The cheap kind you get free in a cereal box.

They are Mark Rothkos.

They are Christmas in May.

What I love most is the reflection of trees in the window of the red door on the right - how it colors the glass almost the precise shade of green as the door on the left, like a dot on a yin-yang.

construction barrier, downtown Portland

I know this plastic chunk is meant to block cars and pedestrians from the Meier & Frank (now known as Macy's) construction mess, but instead, it tempts me to play.

It does not block; it is a block. I look at the emergency-orange color, the toothy tread along the bottom, and the print across the front, and I think: Lego.

Elevator Do Not Park (lomo on a cloudy Portland day, Pearl District)

Note: The pictures in this entry are displaying as slightly cut off on the right side, so click the permalink to see the full images.

shot with the Lomo, Waterfront Park

Walking in Old Town this morning, my husband and I discovered rides and candy apple stands crowding Waterfront Park. There were no children in sight. No strollers. No long lines. No carnies. No nauseating caramel scent. There was, however, the same corporate logo on every booth and ride: Funtastic.

We didn't know if the fair was being set up or torn down. We didn't even know what it was for. The Rose Festival?

Are we officially workaholics now?

Most of the rides reminded me of bad dreams I had after visiting Disney World as a kid. The "It's a Small World" ride nearly stopped my heart, and I still panic when I think about riding past the dangling globe and reaching out to touch it. I refused to let Mickey Mouse (or any other similarly costumed adult) touch me. I threw up in the teacup ride.

Note: The pictures in this entry are displaying as slightly cut off on the right side, so click the permalink to see the full images.

Window of a downtown immigration attorney. The signs also advertise passport photos and fingerprint services. When I took this lomo, some people inside looked nervous, and I felt guilty. I tried my best not to photograph any people - just this window.

food cart, fenced in, downtown Portland

gallery window in Portland

Something about this image reminds me of reading Wendy's dreams. Maybe because of the red-eyed rabbits, but more because of the strangeness. Wendy transcribes her dreams without artifice, revealing even the most bizarre details without a hint of self-consciousness. And without artifice, they transcend the dream diary and become art. Red-eyed rabbits, where did you travel last night?

truck parked in downtown Portland

This is the truck that drives onto the exit ramp and never returns. The truck with mysterious cargo in the trailer and a locked back door. The truck that waits outside your front window when your parents are late arriving home from work. When your father's heart stops and doctors bring him back a second time. When your mother has a stroke at 42. When your cousin drives into a ditch in mid-seizure, her body found battered and bruised by the county police within the hour. When your chest aches and nobody is there to help you. When you collapse in seizure, the shower still running hot - then cold - over your skin. Your blue skin. When the child crawls into the backseat of the stranger's car. The Terminal Transfer truck is there and there, too. And here always. It does not turn on its headlights in the rain. It rides your tail. It fails to switch on the turn signal. It slips past the "Do Not Enter" signs without a single horn honked. Without a police siren.