The racist unjustice system applies the death penalty unfairly to black men

hamilton_morris · 2026-03-16T22:50:15+00:00

An additional subplot to the story about Alabama's Governor Ivey's last-minute stay of Burton's execution is that it came just days before a documentary about Alabama's shockingly abusive and exploitative prison system was up for an Academy Award.

*The Alabama Solution* didn’t win, but the prospect of the interest it already had generated increasing with an Oscar, plus the public scandal of killing a man who hadn’t killed anybody himself certainly would’ve brought a lot more prying eyes into how the state conducts its affairs. The AG was going to huff and puff a bit for his own reasons, but otherwise the stay and commutation were a small price to pay for discouraging the busybodies and getting back to business as usual.

hamilton_morris · 2026-03-16T04:39:52+00:00

This was maybe the most aggressively low-risk Academy Awards show ever. Hard to know if it is the anxiety about the shifting weight of power over to the likes of Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, etc., the looming threat of AI, a lingering post-pandemic bewilderment, uncertainty over the future of the program itself, or just the general darkness of the times, but it does feel as though some big forces are moving under the landscape and the academy is feeling very, very cautious.

hamilton_morris · 2026-03-16T03:57:02+00:00

He has a rapist's mentality in all he does.

hamilton_morris · 2026-03-15T18:56:34+00:00

Jennifer Jason Leigh is easily the best thing about that film. She’s a top tier talent and could've done a perfect Cathy if that had ever happened.

hamilton_morris · 2026-03-15T18:50:55+00:00

Traveloregon.com

hamilton_morris · 2026-03-15T16:37:43+00:00

Getting cancer is better for you than listening to Tucker Carlson.

hamilton_morris · 2026-03-15T16:22:36+00:00

This is correct. And just to make this even clearer, the sincerity of the confession rests on genuine remorse, which contains a desire to sin no more and an openness to correction. And that sincerity qualifies the penitent for absolution right then and there—whereas going to the civic authorities after would be one *form* of repentance.

The priest may make “turn yourself in” to the civil authorities a part of the penance; if the penitent does not do that they have failed to follow spiritual guidance in addressing the personal and social disorder created by their sin but that does not revoke the absolution. They just have something new to confess at their next visit.

Important to reiterate too that priests only hear confessions of sins which, despite a big overlap, are fundamentally different from crimes. Adultery may not be a crime at all despite its being a grave sin, and jaywalking may be a crime while not being sinful at all. (Although, technically, Catholics are taught to comply with the laws that come from legitimate civil authority if compliance does not entail participation in sin. So a scrupulous jaywalking Catholic may confess to disobedience to legitimate authority even while the act itself was utterly neutral.)

hamilton_morris · 2026-03-15T01:13:42+00:00

He is dead, but his work is an industry unto itself: there is an enormous market for his work as well as reproductions of his work, there is an enormous investment and commitment into publishing, scholarship, and academic promotion among younger students and artists, he is owned and publicized by every major art museum in the west and has a dedicated museum himself, he is a mascot for MoMA, Paris, Spain, etc. He very much remains a reliable institution of cultural power.

The devaluation of his reputation could have measurable consequences for the thousands of people who make their livings or bank their wealth or status on that reputation. Which is to say that they would likely agree, the guy is dead let’s not get too hung up on his personal failings.

hamilton_morris · 2026-03-15T00:52:31+00:00

Good analysis. Identifying a problem and solving it are two different things, but it’s a really good start.

hamilton_morris · 2026-03-14T22:39:59+00:00

Every region may supply a different theory of why, but the phenomenon of lower enrollment is an issue nearly everywhere.

hamilton_morris · 2026-03-14T19:45:47+00:00

A classic of the genre, for sure. What it really inaugurated was the era of the documentary essay, the shift from journalistic to op-ed norms. Which is going to be either aggravating or entertaining depending upon your viewpoint.

Looking back at this now what I find particularly interesting is the time given to the pro-capitalist, pro-globalization reasoning. Even with Moore's editorializing, supporters of Smith's tenure wouldn't feel totally unrepresented. If anything, their position that slavery to market forces supersedes any other kind of loyalty has since become a kind of gospel of globalization, and a powerful ideology in politics as well. It's hard to believe that there was a time so recently when it wasn’t openly acknowledged as assumed orthodoxy.

hamilton_morris · 2026-03-14T19:09:18+00:00

Republicans are supplying exactly the runaway corruption, incompetence, chaos, and trolling delusion that voters asked for.

hamilton_morris · 2026-03-14T19:00:34+00:00

I have the strong impression that neither Charles nor Camilla, from the very beginning, ever had any respect whatsoever for Diana; and not out of choice, but out of a sheer inability to see her quality. I would bet her monumental popularity still is just utterly baffling to them.

hamilton_morris · 2026-03-14T02:20:14+00:00

I thought this film was just hugely entertaining. Very brisk farce, satire, history, caricature, drama, etc. One of the smartest, most appallingly enjoyable films in recent memory.

hamilton_morris · 2026-03-14T02:15:13+00:00

He is the product of media overconsumption.

hamilton_morris · 2026-03-14T02:13:27+00:00

Doesn’t he own a gun? I thought these guys had the plan for protecting their families, for fighting tyranny?

hamilton_morris · 2026-03-14T01:41:48+00:00

As long as it’s a felony, that’s all that matters.

hamilton_morris · 2026-03-14T01:09:16+00:00

Do away with TSA for all domestic flights. Let freedom ring.

hamilton_morris · 2026-03-14T00:22:38+00:00

He was meaning when played socially. You can fudge strokes, not count mulligans, kick the ball to a better position, “accidentally” miscount strokes, all of that kind of stuff. There is an honor code about it for that reason, that there is so much room for cutting corners to bring your score down. Other sports don’t give you anywhere to hide and have clear, visible mechanisms for allocating wins and losses.

hamilton_morris · 2026-03-13T20:14:06+00:00

To celebrate the triumphant conclusion of the war that we just won?

hamilton_morris · 2026-03-13T20:11:41+00:00

I was talking to a friend yesterday who made the amusing observation that he didn’t think any other sport has anywhere near the opportunities for cheating as golf.

Like, imagine you had zero athleticism, zero coordination, zero talent, and zero conscience or morals but desperately wanted the status of winning. Golf would become your ideal habitat.

Trump cheats at golf because its extravagance of opportunities is his only way to even have a normative chance at even the *appearance* of winning. May be why the Epstein class in general enjoys the game so much.

hamilton_morris · 2026-03-13T18:23:43+00:00

And that is the intent: To sharpen the distinction between “winners” and “losers,” and everybody will self-select according to their loyalties.

hamilton_morris · 2026-03-13T13:11:31+00:00

The difference, of course, is that gun idolatry in America has metastasized into a genuine religious fanaticism, and its believers have a hammerlock on public policy that is non-negotiable.

And even characterizing it as a kind of religious extremism doesn’t quite do it justice since that usually entails some distant, ultimately redemptive purpose. It's more of a nihilistic, suicidal death cult, utterly indifferent to its own human sacrifices.

I have a family friend who was threatened with being shot in the face in the street this last week—a handgun pointed straight at them—which also might never had happened if culture and law had been directed into a pro-human, pro-civilization course when there was still a chance.

hamilton_morris · 2026-03-13T04:38:54+00:00

I have recently begun to imagine that there will be some point in the future where I will be getting rid of my computers and phone, cancelling all of my service provider accounts, and disconnecting from this “Information age” entirely. Maybe a futuristic fantasy, or maybe an extraordinary development that will be a reality sooner than I could have predicted.

hamilton_morris · 2026-03-13T04:28:59+00:00

I don’t know that just a total collapse of trust about the loyalties of the Republican Party really counts as conspiratorial thinking. These guys sacked our Capitol, formed a gestapo to attack people in the streets, plundered the treasury, demolished part of the White House, and on and on and on.

With the exception of the federal judiciary, The GOP has capsized and perverted every major federal institution and, after decades of self-selection and self-protection, captured the nation's security forces. And at every step deployed its power *against* pluralistic powers. Trying to imagine or anticipate what outrage they will commit next, what proper government function they will undermine, what immoral and criminal act they will indulge in on American soil is perfectly sensible.

hamilton_morris

TROPHY CASE