History keeps on repeating

                               

Trees in our yard have now been turning color, reflecting the season.  This happens every year at this time. 

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Trump voters are not pumped about voting in the midterms, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds

Not a lot of enthusiasm any more now for Donald J. Trump

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An execution again delayed

Below is the only freely available pre-arrest photo I can find of Christa Pike's co-defendant Tadaryl Shipp, only 17 at the time of the murder, now a much older white-bearded convert to Islam who wears a black skullcap.  But I'm not sure I can use his current photo, so my readers should just use their imagination or simply look him up on the internet.  He might even be released in 5 years, but certainly not any sooner.  Posting any current photos, even on my small free private blog, apparently faces serious restrictions, since the owners of original photos may demand payment, something that I won't ever be giving them (but still would be offering them free publicity).  

So out of an abundance if caution, I have now removed any current photos of Shipp.  You may have to see his image on a profit-making site, allowing that site to also make a pitch for extracting some money from you with an ad.  (So that's how press freedom actually works now!)  Yet if I'd just send out an image as an email attachment, not as part of a blog, no one will be policing that at all.  This blog is actually a group email for all my friends.  But rather than sending it to each person, one-by-one--instead now the blog is just a communication device from an 88-year-old woman to her friends all over the world.  Yet, since it's best to err on the side of caution,  I have totally zapped that former image of Shipp in prison now, wearing a skullcap, but you can find it just about anywhere.  It just won't be on this blog any more, with the blog continuing here ad infinitum without that photo appearing here again. 

 On this current blog iteration and its predecessor, going back to 2009 (27 years), it is still possible to see what I said so many years ago, just like what now appears on all the printed pages of my books (tiles posted here above).  And simply like the words on ancient pages lettered by scribes or on images still visible on prehistoric cave walls,  all of that continues a human communication chain linking generations, centuries, and millennia together  But a complete and long-lasting commentary on this blog will not be part of all that, at least to the extent I'd like, because of apparent objections.

Pike's death sentence has been under appeal for the last 30 years, hence the delay is attempting to carry out her final execution.  And so far, her execution has not yet been carried out, although this time, it really came quite close.  And in case she might never be executed, an 25 extra years were added to her sentence after she had tried to murder a fellow inmate.  When it didn't look as though Pike was ever going to be rehabilitated, finally her execution was going to be carried out--though actually it wasn't after all, not even now, as 2 lethal injection attempts did not kill her.  

                    Contemporary free photos of Christa Pike are more readily available than those of Shipp.  She has survived those 2 supposedly lethal recent injections so far,  now even being able to talk and take a few steps.  She is being treated in a hospital, apparently for the damage done by the lethal injections.  Hospital staff are doing their best to help her recover, despite the state's recent efforts to kill her.  But after she recovers, will Tennessee then try to execute her once again?  Or does the state get only one try?  Should they reconsider once again the guillotine, hangman's noose, gas chamber, or firing squad?  Those methods have actually been quite definitive, allowing no one to come back from the dead, unlike the state's recent injections. 

                 

Executions were once big public events.  Might we even want to go back to that now?  And don't tell me to get permission to use that photo here below, as whoever took it is now long dead.  When a photographer dies, that person's photos enter the public domain.  Likewise, ancient portraits may be copied, as who owns them now hundreds of years later?  Or what about trying to trace the inheritors of the early cave paintings?  AI needs to stop acting so ridiculous.  Humankind is the inheritor of all the long stretches of human history going back even thousands of years.  History belongs to all of us now. 

Christa Pike has not yet been executed, as Tennessee's governor has suspended all executions through the end of the year.   So she has a reprieve now after almost succumbing.  Wouldn't trying to kill her again be double jeopardy? 

Better yet,  let's do away with capital punishment altogether. 

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World Central Kitchen has been busy in Gaza.  (WC Kitchen actually sent me this photo, so I feel free to use it.)

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Reuters world

                        Trump says he deserves Nobel Peace Prize but has doubts he will get it

As a consolation prize, Japan gave him a gold-plated golf ball with matching a golden putter.  Japan has given him other consolation prizes in previous years, prizes where he has been the only winner.  Trump has them all on display in his special White House trophy room. 

So Donald Trump did not get this year's Nobel Peace Prize that he had so very publicly coveted, but can I still post photos here of the actual winner?  Her name is Navi Pillay, 

Hey, AI alert now, yoo-hoo, hello out there, I am making exactly zero money, zilch, nothing at all by making this next actual post.  This whole endeavor of picture sleuthing is just totally ridiculous and also so very annoying.  Let's try just to post Pillay's image right now, simply to see what happens here next.  

Navi Pillay appears both above all alone and below with some South Sudanese women.

Previous photos from contemporary South Sudan that I had posted all had to be taken down. because AI had so strongly objected.  But

maybe if these South Sudanese women appear now with Navi Pillay in an authorized photo, they can actually be seen here after all.

Navanethem "Navi" Pillay (née Naidoo; born 23 September 1941) is a South African jurist who served as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014.  A South African of Tamil origin, Pillay was the first non-white female judge of the High Court of South Africa. -- She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize now in 2026 for her longtime efforts to promote peace and international law.

  

Condolences now to Donald J. Trump, as maybe next time a peace prize will actually be awarded to you, something you have wanted for a very long time.  Or maybe you can be satisfied with the many consolation prizes that Japan has been giving you all along, special prizes only being awarded to Donald J. Trump, as actually the only person in the world ever to get them. (Ah, such a frail ego!)