Dopp Juice Archive

Everywhere I walk on campus, I see signs saying “Save Stan ‘Tookie’ Williams!” Just from that bombardment, I’ve gathered three things:

• He’s about to be executed.
• He’s written books that people want to share.
• The campus Socialist organization is his biggest supporter.

So I ignored the signs, mostly because the campus Socialists are a little creepy. And if they weren’t going to spell out why he’s being executed, I wasn’t about to listen to why he shouldn’t be. Yeah, okay, I live under a rock. The SF Chronicle cleared it up for me, though. Here’s the deal with Tookie:Why he’s being executed: He started the Crips, an LA-based gang, 35 years ago. The Crips have killed a whole lot of people and destroyed the lives of many of their gang members. Tookie, himself, was responsible for many, many murders. Sounds like your typical death row case, as justified as you can get.Why he shouldn’t be executed: Since he’s been in jail, he turned his focus toward stopping gang violence. He’s written numerous books to that end (including children’s books), has negotiated truces between rival groups, and has generally been an avid opponent to gangs. Granted, he’s just trying to undo what he started, and with some futility at that, but if you kill him, he can’t be on your side anymore. That, and a big chunk of LA — both gang and anti-gang — will try to riot. And we all know what that’s like.My thoughts on the death penalty? Execution isn’t the problem. Cutting it out won’t change the fact that “hardened criminals” exist and need to be removed from society if we’re to live somewhat peacefully. The problem is a system that creates a need for “crime.” Psychologists have found that no one does anything without feeling like it’s justified at the time. If so many people feel justified in commiting crimes against society, isn’t it time we considered what kind of life circumstances would drive these people to such desperation that they could feel that way? And start there? We put the mentally insane in institutions to help take care of their minds. We put products of abuse and neglect behind bars to show them they’re horrible people. And then we get mad at them when they ban together to become angrier and more dangerous than before. Seriously, America, there must be a better way.As for Tookie, let the man speak. I’m with the Socialists on this one.

Well, wasn’t that lovely. In the middle of the most stressful week of finals, some computer geek who likes to use his powers for evil decided to hack into my website via a security weakness in this b2evolution blog software, and use my server to send spam. My hosting providers–who are some of the best at their job that I know if–immediately recognized the situation and suspended my account to stop the hacking. The result? My site’s been down all week, and I haven’t had a moment to upgrade the blog software until today. Sorry for the inconvenience, and no, you’re not supposed to be “403 Forbidden” from viewing these pages. To all the hackers out there, I send you bad vibes, angry mojo, and tri-fold retribution via karma.

I’ve been involved in the secret beta testing for Squidoo — the latest and greatest Web 2.0 project, spearheaded by Seth Godin. But I wasn’t allowed to talk about it, or they would kill me… at least until today. What the Heck is Squidoo?It’s an organized collection of lenses, which are simply webpages devoted to introducing and explaining specific topics–any topics–like an information-based gateway to the web. Think Wikipedia meets Google.Their philosophy? Everyone is an expert on something. Anyone and everyone should build a lens. Their incentive? Cash kickbacks based on how much traffic and affiliate clicks your lenses draw (and you can choose to donate that cash directly to your favorite charity). Their contribution the web? A better, more humanly-maintained way of finding things and learning about them. Give Google a run for their money! Squidoo’s still in beta testing, but it’s public now, so go check it out. Start with a few of my lenses:- Ani Difranco– The Open Source Movement…and then start making your own!