Quickie - last meal

okay all - rightoe, so forth -- this is stolen directly from the newsclips at the front of the AOL entry thingy.  I could have stolen it from our local Corsicana newspaper since it was there too too.  Notice that I give this guy credit for his work.   So the last meal is no longer a   R I T E   -- [  a play on last rite vs. last right - take your choice :)  ]
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MICHAEL GRACZYK, Associated Press



HOUSTON (Associated Press) -- Texas inmates who are set to be executed will no longer get their choice of last meals, a change prison officials made Thursday after a prominent state senator became miffed over an expansive request from a man condemned for a notorious dragging death.

Lawrence Russell Brewer, who was executed Wednesday for the hate crime slaying of James Byrd Jr. more than a decade ago, asked for two chicken fried steaks, a triple-meat bacon cheeseburger, fried okra, a pound of barbecue, three fajitas, a meat lover's pizza, a pint of ice cream and a slab of peanut butter fudge with crushed peanuts. Prison officials said Brewer didn't eat any of it.   

[ a little side-bar here.  In my youth this would be close to a regular meal for me and most of my teen-age friends, except, of course, my wife who would have had a salad with croutons.)


"It is extremely inappropriate to give a person sentenced to death such a privilege," Sen. John Whitmire, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, wrote in a letter Thursday to Brad Livingston, the executive director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.


Within hours, Livingston said the senator's concerns were valid and the practice of allowing death row offenders to choose their final meal was history.


"Effective immediately, no such accommodations will be made," Livingston said. "They will receive the same meal served to other offenders on the unit."
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might add here....I noticed the "anti capital punishment" folks were not running around at this execution.   They were all in Geogia feeling sorry for the guy who was convicted of killing a policeman.   This does seem to be an interesting opening for conversations.  And, while I do understand the concept - I don't understand why a murder which is a hate-crime is any more a murder than one for robbery or luv ...