Except for timely election info, the extensive list of voting resources will now be at the bottom.

“There’s a reason why you separate military and police. One fights the enemy of the State. The other serves and protects the People. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the State tend to become the People.” ~ Commander Adama, “Battlestar Galactica” (“WATER”, Season 1 episode 2, at the 28 minute mark.)

“What we’re discovering is that the Constitution is not a mechanism that runs by itself. Ultimately, we are a government of men and not law. The law has no force without people who are willing to enforce it. …” ~ William A. Galston, a senior fellow in governance at the Brookings Institution who graduated from college just before Watergate. (From, “Trump’s Ukraine call reveals a president convinced of his own invincibility”, By Philip Rucker, Robert Costa and Rachael Bade | WASHINGTONPOST.COM | September 21, 2019); and as quoted in, “A Very Stable Genius” by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig”, p. 416) 

Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig, now in its 14^th year on KPFT from Houston 90.1-HD2, Galveston 89.5-HD2, Livingston/Goodrich 89.9-HD2, and Huntsville 91.9-HD2. KPFT is Houston’s Community radio.

And welcome to our international listeners from China, Germany, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere.

On this show, we discuss local, state, national, and international stories that may have slipped under your radar. At my website, THINKWINGRADIO-dot-COM, I link to all the articles I read and cite, as well as other relevant sources. Articles and commentaries often include lots of internet links for those of you who want to dig deeper. I do try to fact-check myself and include the links I use to do so.

It’s now the 60th week of Trump’s military occupation of Washington DC. As of the last time I checked on Saturday, after 49 weeks, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee’s deployment of National Guard troops to Memphis, Tennessee at Trump’s request is where they apparently remain for now.  

LAWFARE has a chart of where US troops are currently stationed around the US. The link is in this show post at ThinkwingRadio[.]com.

Due to time constraints, some stories may be longer in this show post than in the broadcast show itself.

1. Our next election day is November 3. This is a critically important election with big stakes. The only poll that matters is the one on election day.
   1. Early voting starts in just about 1 week and runs from OCT 19–30^th.
   2. I have received my mail-in ballot. If you qualify, filled in your necessary annual paperwork, and haven’t gotten yours yet, consider going to HarrisVotes[.]com or VoteTexas[.]gov to see if your ballot was already mailed, or if there is some kind of problem that you need to resolve.
   3. I tried finding my ballot at the state site, and that function appears to be broken. Whatever suppresses the vote, I guess.
   4. Sample ballots are now available online at your county election clerk. You can see your Harris County ballot at HarrisVotes[.]com at the link I’m providing in this show post at ThinkwingRadio[.]com by inputting basic information for look-up purposes.
   5. At the very bottom of this show post are links to county elections sites in the greater Houston metro area, along with other voting resources. I check them periodically, but please let me know if any links are broken.
   6. Most candidates are marked on the ballot with their party affiliation. A few are not. For those candidates, if you have a party preference, you can look up their names on the web, and you can usually find notes about past party affiliations.
   7. There is also a Houston ballot initiative relating to HPD enforcement priorities and methods, and you can vote YES or NO.
   8. There is a Houston Public Media story about that proposition which you can read at the link I’m providing in this show post at ThinkwingRadio[.]com. It’s called “Houston voters to consider deprioritized enforcement of cannabis laws, ban on no-knock warrants”
   9. The last day to register to vote, or to correct information on your registration, was Monday, Oct. 5. You can always register to vote and correct your information, but any changes you make now will apply to the election after this one. For anywhere in Texas, you can check your registration status at gov, The “www” is optional for that site. I’m providing links in this show post.
   10. MIKE: Note that you are allowed to bring in notes to the polls such as a marked sample ballot to help you make your selections, but you MUST take your notes with you when you leave.
   11. Don’t be moved to overconfidence. This may be the most important election of our lifetimes. I know you’ve heard that before, and if you look at where we are now, it was true then, and it’s never been truer than it is now.
   12. Get out and VOTE! The only poll that matters is the one on election day.
2. Personal Voting Note:
   1. I have voted by mail for years, but we live in a new world, with potentially delayed ballot postmarks as well as possibly delayed ballot delivery.
   2. I seriously considered bringing my mail-in ballot to a polling location to have it spoiled so I could vote in person, but ended up mailing it.
   3. I don’t consider this a trivial decision, and you may decide differently, but I’ll tell you what decided it for me.
   4. I mailed in my ballot about a month before election day. I figured that even Trump’s postal service would probably deliver my ballot in plenty of time.
   5. When I checked with the county ballot tracker, it arrived on October 8^th, but it’s waiting for signature verification. (For some reason, that’s been typical lately. I don’t know why.) On the other hand, my wife mailed hers a day before mine, and hers has not arrived yet.
   6. If you’re voting by mail, I suggest mailing in your ballot at least 2 weeks before election day, just to be safe. Then after maybe 7 days, start checking the ballot tracker.
   7. If it’s arrived and accepted, you have no problem.
   8. If it seems to be unduly delayed, consider going to a polling location, explaining the situation, and asking for a provisional ballot.
3. This next story from CLICK2HOUSTON[.]COM could be for you or someone you know. — Free home weatherization upgrades could help eligible Houston families lower energy bills; By Ajay Patel, Reporter | CLICK2HOUSTON.COM | Published: October 2, 2026 at 4:18 PM/Updated: October 2, 2026 at 6:33 PM. TAGS: Home Sealing And Weatherstripping, Houston Heat Mitigation, Reduce Energy Bills, Weatherization Assistance, Centerpoint Energy Program, Energy Efficiency Houston, Home Weatherization
   1. Heat and humidity can be tough on a home — and on the energy bill.
   2. For some income-eligible households, a weatherization assistance program is helping make homes more energy efficient at no cost to the residents.
   3. That includes Antonia Coronado, whose home is being weatherized through CenterPoint Energy’s Home Weatherization Assistance Program.
   4. With help from Laura Escamilla of the Tejano Center, who translated during the visit, Coronado is getting repairs designed to keep conditioned air inside her home.
   5. Contractors are sealing cracks around door frames, covering holes and addressing other areas where air can escape.
   6. For Coronado, the assistance is important because she says she otherwise would not have had the means to make the repairs herself.
   7. … While some energy-efficiency improvements can save homeowners money over time, the upfront cost can be a barrier.
   8. Freddy Salazar with Afford Your Electricity says insulating a 1,000-square-foot home with little or no insulation, for example, could cost between $1,200 and $1,700.
   9. Insulation is particularly important during a Houston summer.
   10. Salazar says an uninsulated attic can reach temperatures of 150 to 180 degrees, allowing that heat to transfer through the ceiling and into the home.
   11. He says it could take up to seven years to recover the initial cost of insulation through energy savings, while the insulation itself can last about 20 years.
   12. … There are also some inexpensive things homeowners and renters can check themselves.
   13. Salazar recommends checking around doors and windows for drafts.
   14. If you can feel cold air escaping around a door, adding weatherstripping can help seal the gap.
   15. For window units, he recommends using caulk to seal gaps along the bottom and metal tape to seal gaps at the top.
   16. Sealing those areas can help keep conditioned air inside and potentially reduce energy use.
   17. … CenterPoint’s Home Weatherization Assistance Program is available to qualifying households that meet these requirements: Are a residential customer in CenterPoint Energy’s Houston Electric Service territory; Live in a home that’s at least 16 years old; Meet income-eligibility guidelines; [and] Receive benefits from public assistance programs like SNAP, Medicare or Supplemental Security Income
   18. The Tejano Center also helps residents who don’t speak English navigate the application process, including submitting applications online.
   19. For Coronado, the improvements mean more than simply fixing parts of her home. She says she’s excited about the changes and believes they will help her better deal with Houston’s heat.
   20. For more information about CenterPoint’s weatherization assistance program and eligibility requirements, visit CenterPoint Energy’s website.
   21. MIKE: If you or someone you know can benefit from this initiative by CenterPoint, I encourage you look into it.
4. I thought that this would be an interesting story to highlight for all the film, stagecraft, and other creatives in the Houston metro area. From CHRON[.]COM — Houston First launches a five-year plan to turn Houston into Texas film capital; By Jamil David, Culture Reporter | CHRON.COM | Oct 8, 2026. TAGS: Film And TV Production, Houston, Houston First Corporation, Houston Film Commission,
   1. Texas has made massive strides toward becoming a premier state for film and TV production. Now, Houston is preparing to become the Lone Star State’s prime film and media destination, with a plan to transform the city’s film industry.
   2. Houston First Corporation, the city’s destination management organization, has announced a five-year strategic plan to make the city a top production destination in Texas and across the South. The plan will grow the city’s film and media production sector by improving incentives, developing the local workforce, improving and increasing production infrastructure, and investing in Houston’s creative economy. 
   3. Developed by the Houston Film Commission in partnership with consulting firm KHM, the plan builds on Houston’s advantages. Those include diverse filming sites, the city’s diversity and global connectivity, and major-market infrastructure, while enhancing production infrastructure and bolstering the local workforce. 
   4. [Michael Heckman, President and CEO of Houston First, said in a press release sent to Chron,] “Houston has all the ingredients to become a much larger player in the film and media industry — extraordinary locations, a diverse population, talented professionals and the scale and infrastructure of a global city. … This strategic plan gives us a clear path forward to turn those assets into greater economic opportunity — creating jobs and attracting investment so that the film industry can thrive here.”
   5. The strategic plan will begin by continuing to improve and build on Houston’s local film incentive, which officially launched last year. The Houston Feature Film Incentive Program offers 10 percent back to producers of qualifying projects on local spend. Houston First has allocated $400,000 annually for the incentive program, which is already one of the most competitive in Texas. 
   6. Along with improving the city’s incentive offering, the five-year plan will also increase marketing and promotion for Houston’s film-ready locations and assets, and streamline permitting and location access. Later objectives of the plan call for advancing infrastructure, like studio spaces that can accommodate larger and more frequent productions. 
   7. [Alfred Cervantes, Executive Director of the Houston Film Commission, said in a statement,] “Growing Houston’s film industry requires more than attracting individual productions — it requires building an ecosystem that can sustain production year after year. … Our focus is on creating the conditions that make Houston an easy choice for producers while developing opportunities for Houstonians to build careers in this industry.”
   8. MIKE: I know that Austin is a hub for creatives of all kinds, and it certainly has its attractions. There’s a reason why the SXSW film festival is held there.
   9. MIKE: I have long felt that Houston and the surrounding area — with all its different architectural, landscape, and environmental possibilities for film — has been underutilized and under-appreciated. I would very much like to see us become another Atlanta or Vancouver for film productions.
5. Inspired by Pete Hegseth’s Christian bloodlust and because voting decisions are still being made, I thought I might reach back for this recent article by THEGUARDIAN[.]COM from September 28^th — Texas Republican called for public execution of Democratic leaders – report; By Ariana Baio | THEGUARDIAN.COM | Mon 28 Sep 2026 12.04 EDT. TAGS: Republicans, Texas, Far right (US), US Politics, news, Bo French, Public Executions, Public Executions of Political Opponents,
   1. Bo French, a Texas Republican running to lead [the powerful Texas Railroad Commission], has a history of making controversial social media posts, including calling for the public execution of Democratic leaders, according to a recent investigation from CNN’s KFile team.
   2. French, who is running to lead Texas’s railroad commission, has recently faced criticism from members of his own party after making a racist post on social media. Powerful Republicans, including the Texas senator John Cornyn, said they would not support French in the upcoming election.
   3. But the latest spat over French’s social media has led to a deeper look at his online history. In a review of old posts from social media accounts that seemingly belonged to French, CNN’s KFile team found that the Texas Republican repeatedly called for public executions of opponents.
   4. In 2020, French used a now-suspended X account to seemingly call for the execution of former president Barack Obama and other Obama administration officials that he believed had disseminated false information about Russia’s involvement in the 2016 presidential election.
   5. In February 2025, French used his X account, under a former handle, to call for other public executions, including Senator Adam Schiff.
   6. The Guardian has asked French’s campaign for comment.
   7. French is no stranger to posting controversial statements online.
   8. Over the last year, he has used his platform to assert that the entire religion of Islam should be banned; claim childless women were “selfish” and “responsible for the demise of our culture”; and posted a poll to ask whether “Jews” or “Muslims” posed a bigger threat.
   9. According to CNN/KFile’s investigation, in May 2020 French used an account under the name “rwbofrench”, which has since been suspended, to encourage Donald Trump to “hang” Obama-era officials believed to be part of the “Russia hoax”.
   10. The posts came after Trump accused Obama administration officials of “treason” to dismiss reports that Russia tried to interfere with the 2016 presidential election to assist Trump.
   11. In response to Trump’s “Drain the Swamp” post, French wrote: “I agree. But you can not do that until your DOJ charges and prosecutes the treasonous bastards who spearheaded the Russia hoax. The death penalty for the Obama conspirators will be the only thing that pulls the stopper out of the drain. #HangEmHigh.”
   12. Minutes later, French responded to another social media user who accused Obama of running the Russia interference, seemingly promoting the death penalty for the former president.
   13. [French wrote,] “The penalty for treason used to be death. Even for a former president. #HangEmHigh.”
   14. It was unclear why the account was suspended.
   15. In another instance of calling for public executions, French used his current social media account, under the former handle “Bo_French_TX”, to call for the death of government officials identified by Elon Musk’s Doge team.
   16. [French wrote in a now-deleted post from February 2025,] “I want more than perp walks. I want public executions.”
   17. In another post, French called for the public execution of Schiff, who led the House committee that released the report on Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
   18. It was unclear whether the latest social media posts were deleted by French or a member of his team.
   19. MIKE: As near as I can tell, the Bo French campaign has not responded to the allegations in this story. I’ll let it rest there, except to remind you that elections have consequences.
   20. MIKE: I’ll have a lot more to say about the death penalty in the last two stories I discuss on today’s show.
6. A story by CBSNEWS.COM — Rubio calls for “unapologetic pursuit of national power,” invoking ancient Greece in Acropolis speech; By Olivia Gazis | CBSNEWS.COM | October 7, 2026 / 1:20 PM EDT. TAGS: United States, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Western Democracy and Philosophy, Iran, Europe, Ancient Greece, Western History, Christian Supremacy, Christian Nationalism — offers a discussion of Rubio’s speech, but cites only excerpts.
   1. MIKE: From reading the story, I had a sense that some comments and contexts might be missing, so I decided to find the full transcript of what was originally a 24-minute speech by Rubio. I’m providing the link to that State Department transcript in today’s show post at ThinkwingRadio[.]com.
   2. MIKE: I found themes in the speech that might be overshadowed by some of Rubio’s flowery language and debatable historical digressions. I decided instead to try to pick out the themes I see of Christian supremacy, Christian nationalism, neo-imperialism, and militarism with what I admit are very selective excerpts of his speech, which I’ll now read with my comments interspersed.
   3. RUBIO: There are great ruins all across the world.  In many cases, they are places where history seems to have exhausted itself: remnants of distant cultures that have long passed beyond living memory.
   4. But the Acropolis is different. … [T]ime has a tendency to dull the senses: great victories and catastrophic defeats, they seem to shrink to becoming like a footnote in a textbook, another fact for our schoolchildren to memorize and forget.  But the Greeks of antiquity, they seem to have an almost mystical hold on our memory. …
   5. 480 years before Christ, the armies of Xerxes arrived in this city and they put its sanctuaries to the torch. … but when the Athenians returned, they gathered the broken remains of the old Acropolis and buried them in the hill where it had stood.  And decades later, under Pericles, they raised the Parthenon.
   6. MIKE: I’ll note here that rather than simply say 480 BC or BCE, Rubio specifically chose to say, “Before Christ”. That’s the first hint of where Rubio is placing Christianity in his world view. Continuing …
   7. RUBIO:For 25 centuries since, the Parthenon has stood.  Empires have risen and fallen beneath its shadow.  And the progeny of the men who built it – the sons of Athens and Rome – have carried their civilization with them to the ends of the Earth. … Many, many people are surprised to learn that the most commonly cited author in the Federalist Papers was not an Enlightenment philosopher or political theorist.  No, the most commonly cited author in the Federalist Papers was Plutarch, the Greek biographer of Greece and Rome’s great men.
   8. MIKE: Empires are a historical reality and are often glorified, but this is Rubio’s first hint of a neo-colonialist and neo-imperialist Western future. Continuing …
   9. RUBIO:Now, much has been written and said about the influence of ancient Greece on the ideas of the American Founders – and, for that matter, on all of the Western philosophers and statesmen that preceded them.  Most of us are familiar with the basic history.  Athens gave us democracy.  Plato and Aristotle gave us Western philosophy.  Our ideas of law, of virtue, of citizenship, and republican government were shaped in the Greek city-states.  Even much of our political vocabulary – words like democracy, tyranny, the word “politics” itself – found its origins here.
   10. Now, all of that is true.  But the things we owe to this place – as Americans, and as Westerners – are actually far, far deeper.  These institutions and ideas … were the outward expression of more fundamental qualities we see in the ancient Greeks – qualities that can’t be reduced to any particular political system or theory.
   11. Here, in Athens, we found the first full realization of all the essential traits that would come to define the West: fierce individuality and relentless ambition; daring exploration and invention; a yearning for discovery, for adventure, risk and glory. …
   12. MIKE: Consider the choice of phrases like “relentless ambition” and “discovery, adventure, risk and glory”. Many of us might not consider “relentless ambition” as an indisputable good. And I interpret words like “discovery, adventure, risk and glory” as referring imperial and colonial expansion. Continuing …
   13. RUBIO:Where others looked inward, the Greeks were the first to direct their focus outward, to chase the thrill and glory of seeing all that was strange and new.  It was this trait – it was this trait that would push the West to create and build things that others could not, marking us out from so many other cultures and civilizations where stability and subsistence were the highest ends of life. …
   14. This was the foundation of the Western mind: our math, our science, our medicine.  Our philosophy, ethics, and religion.  It paved the way for the gospel of Jesus Christ to find fertile soil in Europe and flourish into the empire of Christendom. It was the foundation of the riches of Christian theology – of Augustine and Aquinas and the whole tradition of natural law.
   15. MIKE: And there it is again. Combining Christianity and Christendom with European expansion. Rubio failed to mention in this context the extension of Christianity by conquest, the Inquisition, the destruction non-European civilizations, and even slavery. And he certainly justifies Muslims having some new apprehensions about Europeans as Christian Crusaders and imperialists. Continuing …
   16. RUBIO:It gave birth to a civilization marked not just by a common culture, it was marked by a common anthropology … Its descendants …
   17. MIKE: A little racism there …
   18. RUBIO:Its descendants would share not just the idea of a natural order, but a distinctive understanding of virtue; of destiny and fate; of truth, goodness, and beauty; of a code that dictates how men ought to live; of objective standards and ideals to strive towards.
   19. For the Greeks of antiquity, the pursuit of excellence was the very principle of man’s existence.  They organized all of civic life around contest, ambition, competition: in philosophy and poetry, in sculpture and drama, in athletics and art, in war and statecraft.  The classical Greek city was an arena for great men to test and prove themselves, to hone their potential through perpetual struggle – to be the best, the strongest, the most beautiful, straining to inch ever closer to perfection.
   20. Now I know that to modern ears, what I just described, this way of life, may sound odd; it may even sound cruel.  The ideal of many ideologies in our time has, frankly, become a world of perfect safety, devoid of risk or failure, with neither the glory of victory nor the shame of defeat … ; we preoccupy ourselves more with the comfort of the worst than the potential of the best.  We hold the most exceptional things among us hostage to the average, the ordinary, the mediocre. …
   21. MIKE: To me, that sounds a lot like glorification of Roman brutality. Continuing …
   22. RUBIO:The ancient Greek city-states … were filled with intense passion and rivalry and faction and conflict.  But from that constant struggle for distinction – from that came the great flowering of art and philosophy and political and intellectual energy that would transform a collective of Mediterranean cities into the birthplace of the greatest civilization in the world.
   23. The thumos, as the ancient Greeks called it – the fire of passion, strength, courage, pride – is the heart of great civilization.  And without it?  Without it, nations lose their will to fight, the will to strive, the will to survive. 
   24. Today, too much of the West has forgotten this quality.  Over time, we in the West came to feel ashamed of the very things that made us exceptional.  We felt embarrassed that our achievements set us apart from the rest of the world.  Our prosperity somehow became a source of guilt.  We no longer believed we deserved and had earned our greatness. 
   25. MIKE: Again, aside from the hint of White supremacy he slipped in there, this sounds to me like aspiration to rebirth of militaristic culture. It’s even how Hitler and the Nazis imagined their postwar Reich, with their own so-called “German Combat Games” or Deutsche Kampfspiele. It was to be their effort to inculcate a culture of combat and ‘superiority of the strong’ in their Reich. Continuing …
   26. RUBIO: The word “nationalism” became a dirty word.  And so we tore down our monuments; we condemned our own history.  And in too many places, we taught our children to be ashamed of the countries they would inherit.  In the process, we opened our borders and outsourced our industry, and allowed our militaries to wither and to decay. …
   27. MIKE: Of course, Republicans and capitalists did that. But continuing …
   28. RUBIO: But others were all too happy to fill the vacuum that we left – the vacuum left behind by our weakness.  And as the West’s confidence faltered, its adversaries and its rivals only grew more assertive, building up their own wealth and their own power in our stead.
   29. And now, today, we find ourselves at a crossroads.  Because the next decade and the decisions we make will write the story of the next century.  The course we take will determine whether the West maintains its place at the head of the world or resigns itself to a future of atrophy and servitude and decline.  We will either choose to act now or lose the choice to act at all.
   30. MIKE: Can’t you just imagine speeches like this in post-Versailles Treaty Germany, leading up to Hitler’s 1933 electoral win? Continuing …
   31. RUBIO: Under President Trump, the United States has made its choice.  We choose the unapologetic pursuit of national power: to take back control of our critical supply chains, to reindustrialize our economy, to rebuild our defense, to fight for dominance of the technologies and industries of the future. 
   32. MIKE: “[T]he unapologetic pursuit of national power”. Hey, longtime listeners to this show know that I’ve been advocating a stronger defense industry for years in the presence of obvious military threats from Russia and elsewhere, but the “unapologetic pursuit of national power” sounds more like aggression than defense. And under Trump, I think that’s what we’ve been seeing more of. Continuing …
   33. RUBIO: We choose to reach for new frontiers: in advanced manufacturing and super intelligence; in drones, weapons, and warfare; in chips, minerals, cyber, and every other domain of human possibility. …
   34. MIKE: “Super intelligence”. A new Trumpism that Rubio managed to say without flinching or rolling his eyes. One has to admit that that was impressive. Continuing …
   35. RUBIO: [F]or all their lofty ideals, the ancient Greeks were not naive.  They understood that nations have interests.  They understood that statecraft requires prudence and diplomacy, but they also understood that it requires the ability to wield force when prudence and diplomacy fail.  They understood that power requires not only having the means to defend yourself, it requires the credibility that you are willing to use it.
   36. This is the classical understanding of politics and of statecraft that the Trump Administration hopes to reclaim – reclaim not just for our country, but for the whole of our civilization.
   37. We believe that Europe can awaken from its long slumber and rekindle the fire that was lit here millennia ago. …
   38. MIKE: Again, this sounds to me like a vision and sentiment that one might hear in post-WW1 Germany. That is to say, pre-WW2 Germany. Continuing …
   39. RUBIO: Across this continent, we are witnessing what we hope will be the beginnings of a generational shift: skyrocketing defense spending, a flurry of new partnerships and programs, expanded manufacturing and production, following on the historic defense commitments made last year in The Hague. …
   40. MIKE: That may be the first time that I’ve heard the phrase “skyrocketing defense spending” as not only a good thing, but as an ambition. I, on the other hand, might advocate expanded defense spending as a national necessity, but not necessarily as a national “good”, and I don’t think that’s just a semantic difference. Continuing.
   41. RUBIO: Though passions may, at times, have strained the bonds of affection between the United States and Europe, it must not be allowed to break them.  Together, we must strengthen an alliance capable of confronting threats of our age.
   42. MIKE: Of course, almost all of that “strain” was caused by Trump insulting and betraying our allies and appearing to embrace what have been historically viewed as the West’s potential adversaries, but continuing …
   43. RUBIO: And we can.  Because we do not believe the transatlantic friendship should be zero sum.  Quite the opposite: our vision is of an alliance whose strength is greater than the sum of its parts.  It is a vision we saw in action just last month, in an unprecedented new agreement between the United States, Denmark, and Greenland – an agreement that will reshape the Arctic and bolster the security of all of NATO.  All three partners in that deal emerged victorious.  All of Europe – and NATO and the United States emerged safer, stronger, and more secure because of it. …
   44. Now [it] has become fashionable today to believe that enlightened foreign policy means prioritizing the global community over one’s own people.  And I think here, too, we have much to learn from the men of ancient Greece because they knew that there was nothing selfish or wrong about loyalty to your nation, nor anything selfish or wrong about fighting to defend its interests above all else. 
   45. They believed – fiercely – in the ideal of the great man: the exceptional individual who obtains immortality through his own deeds.  But they believed that glory and fame, those things were won through striving, sacrificing and achieving greatly for something larger than yourself.  The recurring hero of the ancient Greek world was the man who was willing to pay any cost for a cause worthy of his loyalty. …
   46. MIKE: As Wikipedia describes the Great Man Theory, “The great man theory is an approach to the study of history popularized in the 19th century. According to it, history can be largely explained by the impact of great men, or heroes: highly influential and unique individuals who, due to their natural attributes, such as superior intellect, heroic courage, extraordinary leadership abilities or divine inspiration, have a decisive historical effect.”
   47. MIKE: Of course, the 19^th century was an era that gave us many dictators, tyrants, would-be conquerors and empire builders, and war. May heaven spare us from the great majority of self-anointed “great men”. Continuing …
   48. Rubio These … are the qualities that would shape the Western moral imagination.  From the Christian martyr who refused to betray his faith to the patriot who gave his life for his country; from Saint Thomas More to the Battle of the Alamo, running through the immortal closing words of the Declaration of Independence of the United States which says, “We mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
   49. MIKE: And there he goes again, glorifying Christianity and Christian martyrdom. Why should we see Rubio’s militant — perhaps even radical — Christianity as being superior to radical militant Islam? I’ll leave you with that thought as we continue toward the end of Rubio’s speech.
   50. Rubio: It is from the Greeks that the West inherited its sense of duty – an unbreakable loyalty to one’s code, one’s cause, one’s country.  Our heroes, the heroes of the West are those who choose to remain faithful to their duty precisely when it is most difficult and painful to do so: the man who is bound by his word, the soldier who will not abandon his post, … the proverbial captain, who goes down with his ship.
   51. This is wholly different from what we see, even now, for example from fanatics like the radical mullahs of Iran, whose cult of death hails child suicide bombers as national heroes, and portrays martyrdom as an end to itself. …
   52. [O]ur heroes may be willing to die for their cause; but our heroes do not worship death.  It is precisely because we value life that we come to recognize the heroism in those who would sooner sacrifice it than to betray their principles.  Now, we take the West’s conception of these things – heroism, honor, duty – we take these things for granted.  We assume that these somehow are universal to all people in all times and in all places.  They are not.  They are the product of a distinct character … which arose here and shaped the whole story of the civilization that came after it.  A civilization that we must fight to defend today with the same passion as our forefathers did.
   53. The men who built the Parthenon were succeeded by the architects of European Christendom, who raised the cathedrals of Milan, Cologne, and Florence. …
   54. The hunger for new knowledge, that’s what gave birth to Magellan’s first expedition around the world, to Columbus’ discovery of the Americas, and ultimately to Apollo 11’s journey to the moon.  And the qualities that led Alexander to conquer the entire known world reappeared in Caesar, then Charlemagne, and Cortes.
   55. MIKE: Again, Rubio’s glorification of war and conquest intermingled with militant Christianity; an attitude that many of us hoped could be left behind us in a globalized 21^st century era of incredibly powerful militaries and nuclear weapons. Continuing …
   56. Rubio: And in America, that same tradition rediscovered itself anew.  An open and wild land became the site of a great revival of Western imagination and ambition.  The Greek aspiration for new horizons became the American frontier spirit. …
   57. The greatest Americans of every generation have carried the unmistakable features of their forefathers – born in Athens, formed by Rome, baptized in Christendom, hardened in the furnace of medieval Europe, endowed with the English genius for liberty, and then carried across the Atlantic to be reborn on the shores of a new world. …
   58. We are at an inflection point – an inflection point not only in the history of my nation, but an inflection point in the whole of our civilization. 
   59. The threats we face today are every bit as real as they were on the dramatic stage of antiquity.
   60. National interests did not vanish in the face of international institutions.  War did not disappear simply because we preferred peace.  Other states continued to arm, to seek influence, to compete for territory, and technology, and resources, and markets, and energy, and power.
   61. And now, there is war again.  There is new competition between great powers again.  There is vulnerability, aggression, terrorism, a whole universe of new threats and attacks again. …
   62. We have built a model of that with our partners here in Greece.  In our defense partnerships, in energy and technology, in our shared ambition to secure Europe’s borders from the threats of mass migration. …
   63. The history of Greece … shows us that ours is the inheritance of great heroes, and that we should be proud – that we should be intensely proud – of where we come from.  We should marvel at what our forefathers carved out of this countryside.  The story of our civilization is the greatest story ever known to man.  And it began here, with the first men and women of the West.  From them – from them – we can rediscover the virtues, the courage, and the strength to confront the dangers that we face in our time.
   64. MIKE: That’s the end of Rubio’s excerpted speech. [And I’ll have a few final thoughts on the speech after this short break.]
   65. MIKE: In case you couldn’t tell, I actually found Rubio’s speech to be pretty alarming.
   66. MIKE: I want to note here that as an American Jew of Eastern European descent, I have my own mixed views of what Rubio might unabashedly call “European Greatness”.
   67. MIKE: As someone of European extraction, I certainly respect and benefit from much of the Enlightenment and Renaissance philosophy that Europe has given us, as well as the science and technology that grew from those eras.
   68. MIKE: But as someone descended from Eastern European Jews who emigrated from the Pale of Settlement, and whose ancient and recent ancestors experienced Christian discrimination, oppression, torture, attempts at forced conversion, pogroms, and efforts at ethnic extermination, I tend to view European pride mixed with Christian supremacy and nationalism with a very wary eye.
   69. MIKE: And of course, Jews were not the only victims of European Christian imperialism, ethnic discrimination, and even efforts at extermination.
   70. MIKE: Trump and Rubio — and even Putin — and their Christian Nationalist, neo-imperialist inclinations are a danger to all of us.
   71. MIKE: A recurring theme from the rebooted “BATTLESTAR GALACTICA” was, “All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again.” — “Battlestar Galactica (Reboot)”, Spoken by Number 6
   72. MIKE: If we — meaning humans — are not extremely careful, we’ll live that prediction.
7. There was a HAARETZ[.]COM article from September 16 that was paywalled. It was called “Top Israeli Think Tank Issues Rare Warning. Its Last Came Months Before Oct. 7.” It’s then sub-captioned “The Institute for National Security Studies warns in a strategic alert that settler terror reflects a policy ‘directed from above,’ with effects beyond the West Bank. ‘The cost of waiting is increasing,’ an expert says of the government’s inaction”. In searching for a usable alternative, I found this one from NEWARAB[.]COM. I think that the language used in their version of the story is mostly journalistically neutral enough that I feel comfortable using it. So, from NEWARAB[.]COM — ‘Jewish terrorism’ poses existential threat to Israel, leading think tank warns; By Matthew Hoare | NEWARAB.COM | 16 September 2026/Last Update 17 September, 2026 15:08 PM. TAGS: Israel, Occupied West Bank, settler violence, Israeli settlements, Palestinians, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Benjamin Netanyahu,
   1. [MIKE: Before I begin reading, I want to mention that I think the framing of settler attacks on West Bank Arabs as “’Jewish terrorism’” is, unfortunately, fair, if more all-encompassing than I would like. Continuing by reading the story …]
   2. Israeli state institutions are at risk of collapse due to surging settler terrorism, a leading Israeli think tank warned on Monday [September 14], as anti-Palestinian violence sweeps the occupied West Bank.
   3. The Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) said the empowerment of ultranationalist Israeli forces is weakening the military, eroding law and order, and deepening the country’s international isolation.
   4. [MIKE: I’ll note here that according to one assessment, “Observers and its policy positions generally place the INSS in the political center or center-left of the Israeli security establishment.” Continuing …]
   5. [It wrote in a strategic alert,] “Jewish terrorism has evolved from a local enforcement problem into a distinct strategic threat to the State of Israel and its democratic character …
   6. [It continued,] “We warn of a threat to Israel’s very ability to govern and function. As history teaches us, democracies that fail to restrain radical forces within them do not survive.”
   7. This is only the second time the INSS has issued a strategic alert. The other time was in March 2023 when it issued a warning about the political crisis triggered by the far-right Netanyahu government’s attack on the judiciary.
   8. Since taking power at the end of 2022, Netanyahu’s coalition has presided over a surge in anti-Palestinian violence, facilitated by extremist ministers from the Jewish Power and Religious Zionism parties.
   9. The rate of violence has increased every year since 2023, reaching a record high this year, according to the UN.
   10. Israel’s security establishment recorded 660 incidents of settler violence in the first half of 2026, up 63% on the second half of 2025 and 50% higher than the same period a year earlier.
   11. The intensifying pogroms have been accompanied by the destruction of dozens of Palestinian villages and the forced displacement of tens of thousands of civilians by settlers and the Israeli military.
   12. Settlers are also becoming increasingly aggressive towards Israeli soldiers and law enforcement, with such incidents climbing more than a third in the first six months of 2026, INSS said.
   13. Kobi Michael, senior researcher at INSS, said settler extremism poses a “very severe threat” to Israel’s security, particularly in the run-up to the highly contentious general election in October.
   14. [He told The New Arab,] “Jewish terrorism and violence in the West Bank is something that feeds very deep political rifts and disputes in Israeli society. … I’m very concerned that the violence will not be stopped in the West Bank. If it is not tackled, I almost have no doubt that it will penetrate Israeli society.”
   15. The report said that the failure to prosecute violent settlers, political support for the perpetrators, and the weakening judicial system are “creating a reality marked by lawlessness, non-recognition of state institutions, and the loss of the state’s monopoly on the use of force”.
   16. [It said that] The lack of a response to the violence “constitutes evidence that it is a policy directed from above.”
   17. Among the most influential ministers in the settler movement is the extremist national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has incited violence against Palestinians, armed thousands of settlers, and lifted restraints on police officers and prison officials’ use of violence.
   18. The report also warned that settler violence is increasing Israel’s international isolation and inviting intensifying sanctions.
   19. The UK announced last week it would cut ties with Israeli settlements, with Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband accusing members of the government of facilitating ethnic cleansing and encouraging settler terrorism in the West Bank. It has been joined by other Western nations including France, Canada, the Netherlands, Ireland and Spain in banning settlement trade.
   20. [The INSS said,] “Jewish terrorism, together with an unchecked settlement policy, has become one of the most effective instruments in the international campaign against Israel. … This campaign portrays Israel as an aggressive, oppressive and racist state that effectively advances ideas of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.”
   21. INSS is one of Israel’s most prominent think tanks and has close ties to the country’s security establishment.
   22. The alert echoes several letters signed by retired defence and security officials in recent months, which have urged the government to rein in settler terrorism in the West Bank.
   23. MIKE: The use of the phrase “intensifying pogroms” against West Bank Palestinians is no doubt strategic from a historical and propagandistic context, but I can’t say its inaccurate.
   24. MIKE: It’s not just that settler attacks on innocent Palestinians is horrible and deplorable by itself. It’s also the highly effective moral ammunition it gives to anti-Israel propagandists.
   25. MIKE: Having said that, I wanted to look at the dictionary definition of the word “propaganda”.
   26. MIKE: Part of that definition is, “information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc.” and “the deliberate spreading of such information, rumors, etc.”
   27. MIKE: Settler violence in the West Bank is neither a lie nor is it an exaggeration of the reality of what’s happening there.
   28. MIKE: So “propaganda” doesn’t have to be lies, disinformation, or misinformation. It can be truth — facts — “deliberately spread” for ideological or political purposes “to … harm a …a movement [or] nation
   29. MIKE: Thus, Benjamin Netanyahu and his rightwing extremist government have freely given the country’s enemies all the ammunition they need to villainize Israel. Israel’s enemies can’t be blamed for using the opportunity so freely given.
   30. MIKE: Israel is having its national elections on October 27^th.
   31. MIKE: Current polling shows the election between Netanyahu’s coalition and the opposition coalition to be almost a dead heat, with polling shifting back and forth within the margin of error.
   32. MIKE: So the US elections and the Israeli elections — only a week apart — are nailbiters that could be critical to the long-term futures of both nations.
   33. MIKE: No pressure! Whether you’re voting here or in Israel, just vote like your future depends on it!
8. The next stories are going to be hard for some people to hear, discussing aspects of the death penalty that will be graphic, for which I apologize and which is why I’ve saved them for last. My work here was inspired by Pete Hegseth’s enthusiasm for a public execution by firing squad. There were a lot of articles to choose from for this story, and I deliberately chose Al-Jazeera’s because of the country and the part of the world in which they are based. Countries in the Muslim world often have capital punishment on the books for various crimes, including crimes that many Westerners would consider crimes of conscience, such as religious apostasy. From Al-Jazeera — Hegseth says firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter will be ‘public’; An official at the Pentagon told Al Jazeera that former US Army Major Nidal Hassan’s execution would be ‘livestreamed’. By Evan Semones | ALJAZEERA.COM | Published On 8 Oct 2026. TAGS: Death Penalty, United States Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Fort Hood MILITARY BASE, Execution By Firing Squad, President Donald Trump, Nidal Hasan,
   1. United States Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said the execution of a former US Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people at the Fort Hood military base in Texas will be publicly available to watch.
   2. In an interview with the media outlet Real America’s Voice on Thursday, Hegseth was asked about President Donald Trump’s recent order to use a firing squad to execute Nidal Hasan, who was convicted of the 2009 shooting.
   3. The secretary said he approved of the decision, calling it a “no-brainer”.
   4. [Hegseth told [far-right] interviewer Jack Posobiec [PRON:. “po-SO-bick”,] “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public. … Because people need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things.”
   5. Hegseth added that the execution would take place at Fort Hood on December 3 at 1pm US Central Time (19:00 GMT), the same time that the 2009 shooting took place.
   6. Hasan was sentenced to death in August 2013 after a military jury found him guilty of 45 counts of premeditated murder and attempted murder for the shooting.
   7. The former Army major walked into an army processing centre on the Texas base, shouted “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) and opened fire on fellow military members waiting to get medical attention.
   8. Hasan’s execution required approval from Hegseth and Trump, who authorised the use of the firing squad on Monday.
   9. An official with the Defense Department told Al Jazeera that Hasan’s execution would be “livestreamed”, adding that more details would come soon.
   10. It is not clear from Hegseth’s remarks whether troops, spectators or US military officials would be present in person for the execution. US Army regulation states that at least two media outlets should be selected as witnesses.
   11. No state or federal execution has ever been televised in the US. The last public execution in the country took place more than 90 years ago in Owensboro, Kentucky, on August 14, 1936.
   12. The last time a US military execution was conducted by firing squad was in 1945, for desertion during World War II.
   13. When asked to comment on Hegseth’s remarks – and whether Trump would view the execution – the White House referred Al Jazeera to the Pentagon.
   14. The Trump administration announced it would add death by firing squad as an acceptable method for federal executions in April, along with gas asphyxiation and electrocution.
   15. MIKE: First, some background.
   16. MIKE: According to NPR, “It would be the first U.S. military execution in over six decades — and the first by firing squad since World War II. … The U.S. military last executed someone by firing squad in 1945: Private Eddie Slovik was shot for desertion in France, the only U.S. soldier to be executed for that reason since the Civil War. … The last time the U.S. military carried out an execution of any sort was in 1961, when Private John Bennett was hanged for the 1955 rape and attempted murder of an Austrian girl.”
   17. MIKE: As I said in my introduction to this story, there were a lot of articles to choose from for this story, and I deliberately chose Al-Jazeera’s because of the part of the world in which they are based. Al-Jazeera is based in the Qatari capital of Doha.
   18. MIKE: Among nations with capital punishment, countries in the Muslim world often have capital punishment on the books for various crimes, including crimes that many Westerners would consider crimes of conscience, such as religious apostasy.
   19. MIKE: According to summaries by Google AI, citing a UK[.]GOV site, “Qatar has the death penalty, though actual executions are rare.”
   20. MIKE: Citing THEADVOCATESFORHUMANRIGHTS[.]ORG, Google AI says that capital punishment remains a legal penalty under Qatari law, and courts continue to hand down death sentences. However, Qatar maintains a de facto moratorium on executions, with very few carried out in recent decades, though rare exceptions have occurred (such as an execution by firing squad in 2020). [1]
   21. MIKE: Qatari executions are not public. According to Qatari legal codes, executions take place in a private, designated area within a prison facility. Attendees are strictly limited to the public prosecutor, prison administrators, a physician, and a spiritual or religious representative.
   22. MIKE: According to Google AI, reports from Amnesty International and human rights organizations claim that countries that have recently carried out or documented public executions include Iran, Taliban-run Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, North Korea, and Yemen.
   23. MIKE: According to CBS News, since 2021, only 3 countries — Afghanistan, Yemen, and Iran — have held known public executions.
   24. MIKE: It’s important to remember that there is no “polite” way to kill something, whether it’s man or beast. There may be execution methods that are less or more merciful, but since no one has reported back after they’ve been executed — with the possible recent example of Christa Pike — the jury is very much out on which methods those might be, as well as how merciful they actually are.
   25. MIKE: If Nadal’s execution is carried out and if it’s public, whether by firing squad or some other means such as hanging, I feel strongly that both Hegseth and Trump should be physically present to witness it, and their reactions should be shown on split screen as it happens.
   26. MIKE: It’s worth mentioning in this context that Trump is famously averse to the sight of blood, and firing squad executions are particularly bloody.
   27. MIKE: If Nadal’s execution is carried out and if it’s not public, I still feel strongly that both Hegseth and Trump should be physically present to witness it, and their reactions should be recorded in real time.
   28. MIKE: I’ve also come to think that this should be a universal policy whenever an execution is carried out. I believe that the governor who doesn’t commute sentence and the judge who pronounced sentence should be able to witness it in real time, either by being physically present or witnessing it by live stream.
9. Finally, as often happens when I’m exploring a topic and attempting to verify information, other things come to my attention. That’s how I ran into this story about firing squads as a method of execution. Are they “more merciful” than lethal injection? By APNEWS[.]com from March 2023 — Why executions by firing squad may be coming back in the US; By  MICHAEL TARM | APNEWS.COM | Published 9:10 AM CDT, March 24, 2023. TAGS: Executions, Capital Punishment, Firing Squads, Lethal Injection, Alternatives To Lethal Injections,
   1. The image of gunmen in a row firing in unison at a condemned prisoner may conjure up a bygone, less enlightened era.
   2. But the idea of using firing squads is making a comeback. Idaho lawmakers passed a bill this week seeking to add the state to the list of those authorizing firing squads, which currently includes Mississippi, Utah, Oklahoma and South Carolina.
   3. Fresh interest comes as states scramble for alternatives to lethal injections after pharmaceutical companies barred the use of their drugs.
   4. Some, including a few Supreme Court justices, view firing squads as less cruel than lethal injections, despite the violence involved in riddling bodies with bullets. Others say it’s not so cut-and-dry, or that there are other factors to consider.
   5. A look at the status of firing squads in the United States:
   6. WHEN WAS THE LAST EXECUTION BY FIRING SQUAD?
   7. Ronnie Lee Gardner was executed at Utah State Prison on June 18, 2010, for killing an attorney during a courthouse escape attempt.
   8. Gardner sat in a chair, sandbags around him and a target pinned over his heart. Five prison staffers drawn from a pool of volunteers fired from 25 feet (about 8 meters) away with .30-caliber rifles. Gardner was pronounced dead two minutes later.
   9. A blank cartridge was loaded into one rifle without anyone knowing which. That’s partly done to enable those bothered later by their participation to believe they may not have fired a fatal bullet.
   10. Utah is the only state to have used firing squads in the past 50 years, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center.
   11. WHAT HAS CAUSED THE LETHAL DRUG SCARCITY?
   12. Under Idaho’s bill, firing squads would be used only if executioners can’t obtain the drugs required for lethal injections.
   13. As lethal injection became the primary execution method in the 2000s, drug companies began barring use of their drugs, saying they were meant to save lives, not take them.
   14. States have found it difficult to obtain the cocktail of drugs they long relied on, such as sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride. Some have switched to more accessible drugs such as pentobarbital or midazolam, both of which, critics say, can cause excruciating pain.
   15. Other states have reauthorized the use of electric chairs and gas chambers — or are at least considering doing so. That’s where firing squads come in.
   16. ARE THEY MORE HUMANE?
   17. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor is among those who say firing squads are a more humane method of execution.
   18. That idea is based on expectations that bullets will strike the heart, rupturing it and causing immediate unconsciousness as the inmate quickly bleeds to death.
   19. [Sotomayor wrote in a 2017 dissent,] “In addition to being near instant, death by shooting may also be comparatively painless.”
   20. Her comments came in the case of an Alabama inmate who asked to be executed by firing squad. A Supreme Court majority refused to hear his appeal. In her dissent, Sotomayor said lethal drugs can mask intense pain by paralyzing inmates while they are still sentient.
   21. [She wrote,] “What cruel irony that the method that appears most humane may turn out to be our most cruel experiment yet.”
   22. BUT IS DEATH BY FIRING SQUAD REALLY PAINLESS?
   23. In a 2019 federal case, prosecutors submitted statements from anesthesiologist Joseph Antognini, who said painless deaths by firing squads are not guaranteed.
   24. Inmates could remain conscious for up to 10 seconds after being shot depending on where bullets strike, Antognini said, and those seconds could be “severely painful, especially related to shattering of bone and damage to the spinal cord.”
   25. Others note that killings by firing squad are visibly violent and bloody compared with lethal injections, potentially traumatizing victims’ relatives and other witnesses as well as executioners and staffers who clean up afterward.
   26. ARE FIRING SQUADS MORE RELIABLE?
   27. If reliability means the condemned are more likely to die as intended, then one could make that argument.
   28. An Amherst College political science and law professor, Austin Sarat, studied 8,776 executions in the U.S. between 1890 and 2010 and found that 276 of them were botched, or 3.15%.
   29. The executions that went wrong included 7.12% of all lethal injections — in one notorious 2014 case in Oklahoma, Clayton Locket writhed and clenched his teeth after midazolam was administered — as well as 3.12% of hangings and 1.92% of electrocutions.
   30. By contrast, not a single one of the 34 firing squad executions was found to have been botched, according to Sarat, who has called for an end to capital punishment.
   31. The Death Penalty Information Center, however, has identified at least one firing squad execution that reportedly went awry: In 1879, in Utah territory, riflemen missed Wallace Wilkerson’s heart and it took 27 minutes for him to die.
   32. WERE FIRING SQUADS EVER IN WIDE USE?
   33. Firing squads have never been a predominant method of carrying out civilian death sentences and are more closely associated with the military, including the execution of Civil War deserters.
   34. From colonial days through 2002, more than 15,000 people were put to death, according to data compiled by death penalty researchers M. Watt Espy and John Ortiz Smykla. Just 143 died by firing squad, compared with 9,322 by hanging and 4,426 by electrocution.
   35. HAS THE SUPREME COURT WEIGHED IN?
   36. High court rulings have required inmates who oppose an existing execution method to offer an alternative. They must prove both that the alternative is “significantly” less painful and that the infrastructure exists to implement the alternative method.
   37. That has led to the spectacle of inmate attorneys bringing multiple cases in which they argue the merits of firing squads.
   38. In 2019, the Supreme Court ruled in Bucklew v. Precythe that some pain does not automatically mean a method of execution constitutes “cruel and unusual” punishment, which is prohibited by the Eighth Amendment.
   39. The Constitution “does not guarantee a prisoner a painless death — something that, of course, isn’t guaranteed to many people,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the 5-4 majority.
   40. Key factors in deciding whether a method is “cruel and unusual” include whether it adds extra pain “beyond what’s needed to effectuate a death sentence,” Gorsuch said.
   41. MIKE: I’ve long thought that the advent of death by lethal injection had two goals. The obvious one, and the reason that the first 3-drug cocktail was devised, was to provide a more merciful, relatively painless death.
   42. MIKE: According to an Op-Ed from the LATimes, the three-drug execution cocktail was devised in the late 1970s by Dr. Jay Chapman, who was the chief medical examiner for the state of Oklahoma.
   43. MIKE: It was comprised of a fast-acting sedative intended to induce unconsciousness. A paralyzing agent intended to prevent movement. And a potassium compound injected last to affect cardiac activity. [1]
   44. According to the same LA Times Op-Ed, Chapman later acknowledged that the combination was devised quickly without formal scientific or medical vetting.
   45. In other words, while the injection cocktail was devised with the best of intentions, we’ve actually been engaged in multi-decade human experimentation.
   46. I remember early in this process, there was a legal and ethical question as to whether lethal injections would pass the test of being “safe and effective”, as drugs approved by the FDA must be.
   47. Some people joked that if the person died, it was “safe” to conclude that it was “effective”. But there have been numerous horror stories about how long it took to die, human subjects gasping, crying out, and writhing in pain, and ghastly instances where the executioners have had to cut into the subject to find a suitable vein, a process usually performed without anesthesia called venous cutdown.
   48. When seen through this lens, lethal injection has rarely proven itself to be a merciful form of execution. In some instances, it’s been downright torturous.
   49. I did mention earlier that I believed there were two reasons for the prevalence of lethal injection as a method of execution. I think that the second reason is so that witnesses don’t have to see any obvious brutality.
   50. Firing squads are pretty brutal.
   51. Hanging, when performed properly using the “long drop” method, is supposed to break the subject’s neck. That’s claimed to induce immediate unconsciousness and rapid death as an alternative to slow strangulation. But does it?
   52. When a person breaks their neck, it can result in total paralysis below the neck. Paralysis would certainly stop the writhing of the person being hanged, but I wonder if, in some cases at least, it just spares witnesses the visible effects of slow strangulation.
   53. As I said at the outset, there is no polite way of killing something, and there is probably no painless way of killing something. Maybe that’s why we should stop doing it, both for the good of the condemned, but mainly for the good of our own souls.

There’s always more to discuss, but that’s all we have time for today. You’ve been listening to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig from KPFT Houston 90.1-HD2, Galveston 89.5-HD2, Livingston/Goodrich 89.9-HD2, and Huntsville 91.9-HD2. We are Houston’s Community radio. I hope you’ve enjoyed the show and found it interesting, and I look forward to sharing this time with you again next week. Y’all take care!