Month: January 2017

Atheist Obituary From 1889

Bo Gardiner dug up a fascinating obituary from the May 9, 1889 edition of the Mississippi Clarion Ledger reporting the death of a local atheist, Gus M. Setzer.

An Infidel’s Grave

Gus. M. Setzer died a few days ago at China Grove, Rowan county, N.C. He was a pronounced infidel, believing in neither God nor a future of any kind. Two weeks before his death, knowing his demise to be imminent, he went to a tree near the yard and under it marked a place for his grave, giving instructions as to how it should be dug and his mode of burial. He wanted a layer of cedar brush at the bottom of the grave, to be filled up with dirt. He said that when decomposition set in the sap of the tree would draw him up the limbs and he could perch on the top of the tree and view the surrounding scenery for ages to come.

Crime, Punishment and John Jairo Velásquez

The United States criminal justice system sits at one extreme, imprisoning more people per capita than any other country at 724 per 100,000. That needs serious reform, but I suspect one of the reasons we haven’t backed off on criminal sentences is the fear of falling into the sort of trap exemplified by Colombia’s treatment of John Velásquez.

Velásquez was a hitman for Pablo Escobar. As Wikipedia notes, he confessed to 250 killings, including the assassination of several political figures in Colombia. He admitted he participated in a failed assassination attempt on presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan, and was convicted of participating in the subsequent successful plot that resulted in Galan’s murder.

Along with the 250 people he killed by himself, he ordered the murders of another 3,000 people.

Velásquez was eventually captured and sentenced to prison in 1992. But under Colombian law, the maximum prison sentence is 30 years, and prisoners can receive parole if they serve 3/5ths of their sentence with good behavior.

So on August 26, 2014, at the age of 52, Velásquez was released from a Colombia prison.

That is insane. Someone like Velásquez is a paradigmatic case of an individual who should be permanently isolated from larger society. A justice system that allows such hardcore criminals to rejoin society is one that practically flaunts its surrender to lawlessness.

Batman–Dark Knight III Statue

This Batman statue is based on Frank Miller’s Dark Knight III comic, which I have not (and probably will not) read. Andy Kubert is doing the art for the Dark Knight III, and this version of Batman looks awesome. This is what Batman look like if his secret identity was Brock Lesnar rather than Bruce Wayne.