In Oregon, the Death Penalty Is Dealt a Fatal Blow
In my article on penology, I am on record as NOT advocating the death penalty for crime. But I do that for pragmatic rather than moral reasons.
Hanging murderers is perfectly in line with the old Hebrew moral system of "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot". As Exodus 21:12 plainly says: "He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death". So there are good scriptural reasons for Christians to suppport the death penalty in some circumstances.
I do not personally argue for that system, however. I have written a lot on moral philosophy but I do not propose to enter into such issues here.
No. I think there is a strong pragmatic reason to avoid the death penalty: Miscarriages of justice. There have by now been very many cases of people who have been found guilty of serious offences being later exonerated -- even despite confessions -- and then liberated. But you cannot liberate an executed person. So executing offenders is simply unsafe and may itself be a great injustice.
I would like to see murderers hang but we cannot identify murderers with enough certainty for that. So they must live. Locking them up indefinitely is the only reasonable way to advance community safety. So I reluctantly have to agree with Governor Brown
The decision by Governor Kate Brown of Oregon, in her final days in office, to commute the death sentence of all 17 inmates on the state’s death row has brought into focus the sui generis role of the chief executive — both state and federal — in shaping the criminal justice system.
On the federal level, the power to pardon — a cousin of commutation — is found in Article II of the Constitution, where the president is granted the “Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” Other than those barriers, the chief executive’s power to wipe away federal crimes is unlimited.
The ability of governors to extend clemency — meaning commutations and pardons for state crimes — is modeled on this assignment of power to the executive. Oregon’s state constitution grants to the governor the ability to offer “reprieves, commutations and pardons.”
The lives of those 17 will now unfold in prison, with no possibility of parole. Ms. Brown labeled execution by the state an “irreversible punishment that does not allow for correction” and is “wasteful of taxpayer dollars.” It has never, she asserted, “been administered fairly and equitably.”
Ms. Brown’s commutations are the latest move in the Beaver State’s push against the death penalty. That effort began with a 2011 moratorium against the ultimate punishment by the then governor, John Kitzhaber. It continued with a 2019 amendment to the death penalty statute that tightended its scope.
Oregonians adopted the death penalty in 1864, five years after America admitted the territory into the Union as the thirty-third state. It was repealed in 1914, then brought back in 1920. It has executed 60 people since 1904, the last in 1997.
In 2021 Oregon’s state supreme court found that the application of the death penalty in the case of a man convicted of a crime that was subsequently recategorized as “non-capital” violated the prohibition on “disproportionate punishments” in the state constitution, a version of the national parchment’s Eighth Amendment.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 24 states are prepared to hand down a capital sentence, while 23 have banned the practice. Three states, including Oregon, exist in the twilight zone of a moratorium enforced by the governor.
The United States Supreme Court, in a 1972 case, Furman v. Georgia, held that existing death penalty laws violated the Eight Amendment because they were discriminatory and disproportionately burdened minority communities.
That position was clawed back four years later in Gregg v. Georgia, which held that the death penalty was not per se unconstitutional and upheld processes developed in Georgia that minimized the possibility for the arbitrary application of capital punishment.
In the 1977 case of Coker v. Georgia, the Supreme Court held that the death penalty must be proportional to the crime committed, so that it could not be administered in a case when the victim lived, no matter how horrific the offense — in the case of Coker, the rape of a child.
This week a state district court judge in Texas, Lela Mays, recommended that the death sentence against a Jewish inmate, Randy Halprin, who was part of a group that shot a prison guard while on the lam from jail, be tossed out.
The petition arrived via the writ of habeas corpus, and was granted because of antisemitism on the part of the judge who oversaw the conviction, Vickers Cunningham. The district attorney who prosecuted the case admitted that Judge Cunningham “harbored actual bias” against Mr. Halprin.
https://www.nysun.com/article/in-oregon-the-death-penalty-is-dealt-a-fatal-blow
***************************************************Does exercise really help ageing brains? New study raises questions
Educationists have long been aware that transfer of training is very dubious
Exercise and mindfulness training did not improve older people’s brain health in a surprising new study published this week in JAMA. The experiment, which enrolled more than 580 older men and women, looked into whether starting a program of exercise, mindfulness – or both – enhanced older people’s abilities to think and remember or altered the structure of their brains.
“We thought we would find gains from exercise and also from mindfulness and especially from a combination of the two,” said Eric Lenze, the head of the department of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, who led the new study. “We did not.”
The results seem to call into question the ability of exercise and other lifestyle changes to fight cognitive decline with ageing. But they also raise new questions about whether we really understand enough about the brain and mind – or how to study them to know if we are changing them when we walk or meditate.
“Given other studies have found a significant relationship between mindfulness and exercise and cognitive and brain health, how do we explain the current results?” wondered Art Kramer, the director of the Centre for Cognitive & Brain Health at Northeastern University in Boston, who has extensively studied exercise and the brain, but was not involved with the new study.
The answers may have implications for any of us who hope being physically active helps keep minds sharp well past middle age.
Past studies showed that exercise helped brain health
Certainly, a wealth of past research suggests our lifestyles influence our brain health. Exercise, in particular, has seemed to play a key role in how well we think and remember with age. A 2011 review of earlier studies concluded, “there is growing evidence that both aerobic and resistance training are important for maintaining cognitive and brain health in old age.”
Bolstering that claim, a famous 2011 study of 120 older men and women found those who started exercising moderately, mostly by walking, improved their scores on memory tests and increased the size of their hippocampus, a portion of the brain crucial to memory function, while those in a sedentary control group experienced declines in their hippocampal volume and memory skills.
Similarly, mindfulness has been associated with improvements in some aspects of memory and thinking among the elderly, presumably because it helps reduce stress and distractions.
But much of this research was short-term and small-scale, involving perhaps a few dozen participants, or it was epidemiological, meaning it found suggestive links between physical activity or mindfulness and sharper minds, but did not prove they directly better people’s brains.
A new study of exercise, mindfulness and the brain
Which makes the new study noteworthy. Beginning in 2015, its authors, primarily based at Washington University or the University of California at San Diego, recruited 585 healthy but inactive men and women aged 65 to 84. None of the participants had been diagnosed with dementia, but all told researchers they worried their thinking and memories were duller than before.
The scientists tested everyone’s thinking skills, focusing on attention, working memory and recall of words or pictures, and also scanned their hippocampal volume, then randomly assigned them to various groups. One worked out twice a week in supervised, 90-minute exercise classes, alternating between walking or similar aerobic activities, lightweight training and balance practice. After six months, they took their routines home, exercising mostly on their own for about an hour a day for another year.
A second group learned mindfulness-based stress reduction, combining meditation, yoga and mental exercises, under supervision for six months and on their own for the next year. A third group both exercised and meditated several times a week, while a control group attended twice-weekly classes about healthy living.
After six months and again after 18, the researchers repeated the cognitive tests and brain scans.
By the end, almost everyone’s hippocampal volume had shrunk, whether they exercised, meditated or not.
At the same time, their cognitive scores had risen slightly, a universal – but misleading – improvement, Lenze said. If exercise or meditation had actually benefited people’s brains, their scores should have been higher than those of the control group. Because they were not, he said, he and his colleagues attribute any gains to “people getting better at taking the tests.”
What this means for exercisers and the ageing brain
So, do the results indicate working out and mindfulness are pointless for brain health?
“I think this study tells us we don’t know nearly as much about the brain as we think we do,” Lenze said.
Exercise and mindfulness did not improve certain cognitive tasks in this study, he said, but perhaps they would aid other types of thinking or maybe their effects would differ in people with greater or lesser existing memory concerns.
“I think the authors conducted a very rigorous study,” said Teresa Liu-Ambrose, the director of the Centre for Brain Health at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, who studies exercise and the brain, but was not part of this research.
But she also questioned the narrowness of the specific tests and analyses used to measure changes in people’s thinking skills.
So did Mark Gluck, a professor of neuroscience at the Centre for Molecular and Behavioural Neuroscience at Rutgers University in Newark. “Had the researchers used more-sensitive behavioural measures” of how well people think and remember, he said, “their reported outcomes might well have been quite different.”
Other brain scanning techniques likewise might have discerned meaningful changes inside people’s brains by the study’s end, he said.
Overall, the new study’s results “importantly suggest that future studies should carefully consider the characteristics of the study populations” and the exercise and mindfulness routines used, “to sort out the ambiguity” about whether and how they affect ageing minds, Kramer said.
What the findings do not suggest is that working out or meditation are futile, Lenze said. “We do not want people to get the message they shouldn’t exercise.”
Both exercise and mindfulness remain beneficial, he said, and he practises both.
Future studies may, after all, detect benefits not seen in this experiment. “There is still,” he said, “so much to learn about the brain.”
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Stonewall's reading list for primary age pupils is embraced across the country despite organisations distancing themselves from the trans rights campaigners
This week, the Mail investigated a selection of these books. Under headlines ranging from 'challenging gender stereotypes' to 'trans inclusion', the list is proclaimed as a go-to guide for 'schools, colleges, parents, and carers' looking for pro-LGBTQ+ books.
Divided into categories by age, from toddler to teenager, it features four books on 'trans inclusion' alone for children aged just two to four years old.
Among these books aimed at very young children is a story about a character, Jazz, who is 'born with a girl's brain in a boy's body'.
Jazz's family are confused — until a doctor tells them Jazz is transgender and had been 'born that way'. Another is Jacob's School Play, which bears the subtitle 'Starring He, She, and They'. This book proclaims on its dust jacket that it 'introduces young readers to concepts of gender diversity and pronoun options'.
The reading list raises troubling questions about the extent to which Stonewall's vehemently pro-trans ideology holds sway in the country's schools.
A number of organisations — including the Department of Health and the BBC — have distanced themselves in recent months from the controversial charity's 'equality' training for adults, amid concerns that it misrepre‑ sents the law.
Ofsted, the education regulator, quit Stonewall's 'Diversity Champions' scheme last June amid revelations that the charity had encouraged it to threaten primary schools with the prospect of low ratings if they did not ensure that all children were aware of 'sexual orientation and gender reassignment' by the time they moved on to secondary school.
Meanwhile, dozens of primary schools across the UK have signed up to — and paid for — the chance to be a 'Stonewall Champion School'. As Stonewall's website puts it, this allows educators 'to benchmark your school's LGBTQ+ inclusion against the latest best practice'.
At a cost of between £150 and £550, schools taking part in the Champions scheme can strive for a Stonewall 'award' to show they are 'leading the way in celebrating diversity and supporting LGBTQ+ children and young people to fulfil their potential'.
Yet even those schools who have not signed up to the scheme are likely to be using resources influenced by Stonewall's self-declared intention to 'address LGBTQ+ inclusion in primary schools'. Among them is the leading educational material provider Twinkl, which proclaims its links to Stonewall on its website.
Of course, some children will always grow up to be trans and no one should question their right to their identity. Nor should anyone object to an organisation promoting tolerance and acceptance — and some of the books on Stonewall's list do just that.
'Half the reading list is about the celebration of difference — and that can only be a good thing,' says Simon Fanshawe, a co-founder of Stonewall who has spoken out about the organisation's adherence to the notion that men and women are not defined by their sex but gender identity.
'So, much of it would have been helpful when I was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s.
'When it becomes dangerous is when it plants the seed that to be happy, you just can't be a different kind of boy or girl, but you need to change sex and be something you're not.' And it is this that concerns Naomi Cunningham, a barrister specialising in discrimination law who has previously raised concerns about the influence of gender ideology in schools.
'The message promoted by Stonewall and its allies is not about 'tolerance', it's the exact opposite,' she says. 'It is the idea that you can 'choose' your gender, and it is the only current major 'religion' with any sort of traction in our society which demands that people sign up to its tenets or be dismissed as bigots. 'Not only must we not ridicule it, but we must positively reinforce this. And it is incredibly dangerous as these books are planting the seed among very young children that they can decide their 'identity' when they have none of the emotional or intellectual equipment with which to do it.'
Her sentiment is echoed by Debbie Hayton, a teacher — herself trans — who has written about her concerns about the grip gender ideology has on primary schools.
'Young children don't need to be able to find a gender identity in order to express their personality or their feelings or emotions, which is what this ideology is about,' she says. 'This is imposing the views of adults on children, who should be allowed to grow up without these concepts being forced on them. Many of the recommended books are promoted as helping to 'open a dialogue' with children about gen‑ der diversity — but is it necessary? Children are children.'
The concept of being 'misgendered', or even having no gender at all, is a recurring theme in Stonewall's approved 'trans inclusive' literature. Among the charity's recommended catalogue is a slew of picture books aimed at children aged between two and seven which promotes themes around gender dysphoria.
In Red, A Crayon's Story — recommended as suitable for two to four-year-olds — readers are introduced to a blue crayon with a red label. 'Everyone calls him Red because that's what his label says, and every‑ one expects him to draw in red, but as much as Red tries, he can't,' the blurb reads.
All the other crayons have opinions about how to 'fix' Red, from 'more practice' to 'mixing with other crayons'. Yet it's only when another crayon finally asks him to make a blue ocean does the penny finally drop for Red himself. 'I'm BLUE,' he declares.
The finale sees the other crayons united in celebrating his new identity. 'I always said he was blue,' says one. 'It was obvious,' says another. Meanwhile, Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl? — another two to fouryear-old reader recommendation in Stonewall's catalogue — has a 'gender-neutral protagonist' and bears a stamp of approval from Mermaids, the UK transgender rights organisation which is now being investigated by the Charity Commission over management and governance concerns.
Released in 2015 by co-authors Fox Fisher and Sarah Savage, who met when they both appeared in the 2011 Channel 4 documentary series My Transsexual Summer, it features a character called Tiny who likes both fairies and football, and who resents the desire of those around them to establish whether they are a boy or a girl. 'I Am Me,' Tiny declares at the end.
Other books on the Stonewall list are more explicit in their messaging: Alien Nation — aimed at five to seven-year-olds — is billed as a 'great resource' to use when discussing gender stereotypes and trans and 'intersex' identities with younger children. Alien Nation comes with an accompanying teaching pack that proclaims gender is based on 'how you feel'.
'When we are born we are given a gender,' it suggests. 'We are not asked how we feel or if we want it. We are given a gender based on only two options — girl or boy. This is often called the gender binary. 'However, gender is really about how you feel and there are many more than two genders. The words you choose to describe your gender should always be your choice, and you are allowed to change these.'
This is 'dangerous nonsense' according to Naomi Cunningham, who points out that this promotion of identity 'choice' is the thin end of a wedge which is helping to normalise the idea of surgical intervention for confused adolescents.
'What's being done in primary schools and through picture books for small children in particular is the most sinister and insidious aspect of this whole gender ideology craziness,' she says.
'It is grooming, because, along with a host of other books of a similar genre, it's planting the idea that if you do not like who you are you can change into some‑ thing else.
'That is a journey that can end in mutilation and self-harm, particularly in adolescence when many are confused about their changing shapes.
'It is useful to remember that the same organisation that is promoting these books has recently released a Christmas card which features a character with mastectomy scars from breast removal surgery.'
Yet the message that you can 'choose' your gender is reinforced time and again in Stonewall's reading list.
Jacob's School Play, the third in a series of books by authors Ian and Sarah Hoffman — billed as 'ideal for five to seven-year-olds' — sees protagonist Jacob meet a 'nonbinary child' called Ari who likes to be known as 'they'. Jacob is confused by this, but his teacher Ms Reeves explains to him that it comes down to 'who you are inside. From the outside we can't see who anybody is on the inside, so we have to trust them when they tell us.'
The book ends with Jacob telling Ms Reeves that he is glad Ari is a 'they' — 'because they know who they are'.
Yet, as Debbie Hayton points out, identity doesn't come down to feelings. 'This notion may work to an extent in the early years of child‑ hood when lots of children like to dress up and explore different things,' she says.
'But we are setting them up with a time bomb that is going to explode in puberty when biological reality hits,' she says. 'Consistently promoting this idea that gender is a choice is ultimately incredibly confusing for children.'
Christian Concern is a not-forprofit advocacy group that has consistently raised questions about gender ideology in schools. Chief executive Andrea Williams calls the literature on Stonewall's list 'little short of 'propaganda' '.
'It is not helpful, but rather harmful, to suggest to children that they can change sex,' she adds.
'As a society, why would we allow transgender propaganda to be presented to young children, which will only result in more children suffering from gender dysphoria?
'In future, we expect legal cases from parents and former pupils of schools that have promoted transgender ideology and harmed children as a result. Schools should be very wary of using any Stone‑ wall-recommended resources.'
Naomi Cunningham goes one step further. 'I'd like to see this ideology removed from everywhere, but especially from education — and most especially teacher training,' she says.
'Teachers need to be re-educated in the importance of both political impartiality and freedom of speech — they shouldn't be teaching highly contested dogma as fact, nor should they be suppressing children's freedom to reject that dogma.'
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Kristi Noem’s Health Department Fires Transgender Group Ahead of ‘Gender Summit’
“Gov. Kristi Noem is reviewing all Department of Health contracts and immediately terminated a contract with The Transformation Project,” Ian Fury, Noem’s chief of communications, told The Daily Signal on Friday. “The contract was signed without Gov. Noem’s prior knowledge or approval.”
Fury sent The Daily Signal a copy of the document dissolving the state contract.
“South Dakota does not support this organization’s efforts, and state government should not be participating in them,” Noem told The Daily Signal in a statement provided by Fury. “We should not be dividing our youth with radical ideologies. We should treat every single individual equally as a human being.”
Fury said that The Transformation Project had not complied with its state contract. The organization had failed “to submit required quarterly reports for two consecutive quarters,” among other violations.
Noem terminated the contract after The Daily Signal reached out with questions about a “Gender Identity Summit” that the state’s largest employer, Sanford Health, will host next month with The Transformation Project. The project celebrates controversial medical interventions for minors and hosts events in which people ritually “burn” their “old name or pronouns.”
The third annual Midwest Gender Identity Summit will take place Jan. 13 at the Sanford Research Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. According to its website, Sanford Health is “the largest rural health system in the United States.” It serves more than 1 million patients and 220,000 health plan members across 250,000 square miles. It operates 47 medical centers and employs 2,800 physicians.
Minnesota-based Alpha News first reported the event, drawing attention to The Transformation Project, which puts forth as its mission “supporting and empowering transgender youth.” Attendees can earn up to 6.5 professional education credits.
The gender identity summit will include multiple workshops supporting the view that many biological males actually are female and vice versa, and these people are likely to commit suicide unless doctors give them drugs that stunt their growth, introduce what critics call a hormone disease into their bodies, and perhaps even remove healthy body parts. The summit frames this experimental medicine as “gender-affirming care.”
Summit session topics include “Providing Gender Affirming Care,” “Gender Affirming Care and the Attitude of Affirmation in Assessment,” “How My Journey as a Transgender Provider Has Impacted Patient Care,” and “Lessons From Transgender Patients.”
Presenters include left-wing activists and social-justice-minded medical professionals such as Dr. Mayson Bedient (who identifies his pronouns as “he” and “they”), Cody Ingle (a staffer at a suicide prevention nonprofit who includes “LGBTQ+ advocacy” on his LinkedIn profile), and Natasha Smith, Sanford’s head of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
The Transformation Project opposed a bill to make it a felony in South Dakota for doctors to perform sex-reassignment surgeries on children or prescribe them so-called puberty-blocking drugs that would stunt their natural growth. In opposing this bill, the project highlighted the story of a 14-year-old boy, claiming that “hormone blockers saved his life.”
In the first edition of its Transforming South Dakota magazine in 2019, The Transformation Project featured the stories of gender-confused children and teens. It recounted the story of Cameron, who questioned his gender at age 5, and Sebastian, a 14-year-old girl who came to identify as “nonbinary” at age 11.
The project also holds an annual event where participants, including children, ritually burn their “old name or pronouns.”
The South Dakota Department of Health had hired The Transformation Project to “Create a Community Health Worker (‘CHW’) Program with ‘at least one certificate-level CHW.’” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—which certifies community health workers—defines CHWs as “trained public health workers who serve as a bridge between communities, health care systems, and state health departments.”
The contract also required The Transformation Project to develop infrastructure for the CHW program, develop awareness efforts to promote it, participate in the Community Health Worker Collaborative of South Dakota annual conference, collect clinical data, provide success stories, provide quarterly reports, and more.
Before Noem’s announcement, critics panned the gender summit.
“The Midwest Gender Identity Summit has a singular objective—to normalize a destructive belief that being male and female is irrelevant to identity,” Penny Nance, CEO and president of Concerned Women for America, told The Daily Signal on Friday. “The sponsors preach that children are ‘born in the wrong body’ if they don’t feel like the boys or girls they are created to be.”
“Sanford Health has bought into this notion by sponsoring this summit,” Nance added. “The goal is not health care but peddling an ideology that confuses children and fuels the lucrative gender reassignment market. Governor Noem should do everything in her power to protect South Dakotans from this intrusion of trans activism that threatens our kids.”
“Trusted medical professionals should be counted on to ‘do no harm.’” Linda Schauer, Concerned Women for America South Dakota state director, told The Daily Signal. “South Dakotans want young people to be healthy and happy in the sex that God created them to be. So why is Sanford Health promoting this summit?”
“Rather than push children towards a ‘gender identity’ delusion, Sanford should be helping kids determine the underlying cause of their distress,” Schauer added. “We wouldn’t tell a child suffering from anorexia that she’s fat and withhold food.”
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
Bliss: What every woman wants: to feel safe and secure in the arms of her man. Robert Irwin and Rorie Buckey. See 
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