Live Man Walking

Russia--Russia!--has just permanently banned the death penalty. The country that gave the world the gulag archipelago, Stalinist purges, planned famines, mass slaughter of those deemed to be politically inconvenient, and God knows what other ways of killing people, has decided, as the first decade of the 21st Century winds down, that there has been quite enough killing in Mother Russia and it simply has to stop.
(Tell that to the journalists and truth-tellers who continue to be assassinated there.)

But maybe this is a sign of something truly new and good in Europe. They must all be exhausted into the ground by war, secret police, extermination policies, and violence as official policy. Even the Russians are now backing away from legally sanctioned killing--is a new spirit arising in Europe that will infect the world for good this time?

Representative Cao

Joseph Cao is a congressman representing a district in New Orleans that is mostly black, Democratic, and that was hit hard by Katrina. He is a Republican, a Vietnamese immigrant, and a former Catholic seminarian. Last Saturday he was the only member of his party to vote for the Democrats' health care bill in the House. He says he had to vote his conscience and vote for what the people of his district need and want.

Cao won his seat in a special election to replace the old Democratic black representative who was convicted of corruption after $90,000 in cash was discovered in his freezer by the FBI. Can Mr. Cao keep his seat in next year's election? Can he remain a Republican? Stay tuned, but right now Joseph Cao is the face of conscience in the U.S. Congress.

New York--27 & New York--23

The Yankees just won their 27th World Championship, beating the Phillies 7-3 in the new stadium. Of the seven Yankee runs six were driven in or scored by the Series MVP Hideki Matsui. The Core Four--players who all joined the Yanks together in 1995--Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada, and Mariano Rivera were vital to this win and are part of the great Yankee Hall of Fame that Yankee fans carry with them at all times, especially in the winter when things freeze up. Well done, boys, and, as I look at my calendar, I see that April is not that far off. Hurry back.

New York's 23rd Congressional District has been held by Republicans since just after the Civil War. Yesterday a Democrat won the seat beating a Conservative Party candidate endorsed by Sarah Palin (no laughing!), Tim Pawlenty, and the usual miscreants on the Right gasosphere. These geniuses didn't like the Republican nominee and went for the third party guy, the Republican withdrew last weekend and endorsed the Democrat, and last night was the result. It takes some spectacular lack of political street smarts to lose a seat your party has held for about 140 years, but trust today's nut-Right to do it. If this goes on for a few more years the GOP will be a minor party confined to the South and rural midwest and will have no chance of a return to power.

I believe this country needs two political parties, each run by intelligent and rational people, a progressive party and a conservative party. They should each be a brake on the excesses of the other and at the same time mange to move the ball downfield on the issues that make life safer and more humane for the American people. If the Republican Party is to soon remove itself from the national scene serious people will have to get busy creating something better to take its place.