I’m guessing if I asked who won the 2004 Super Bowl, most of you wouldn’t know the answer. It was 22 years ago, after all, and unless it was your favorite team that took home the Lombardi Trophy, who remembers such things?
On the other hand, if I were to tell you that Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake entertained at half-time that year, I’m pretty sure most of you would remember what happened during their performance: a wardrobe malfunction that caused half a million outraged viewers to complain to the FCC. “Nipplegate” became the biggest news story in the country for days, CBS paid a large fine — and no one remembers who won the game. (It was the Patriots.)
Such events can come to define the reputation of people and places. They become the shorthand of history. Think of Pearl Harbor, 9/11, the Challenger, and Chernobyl. No one has to explain the meaning of any of those. And think of assassinations — the indelible linkages between Abraham Lincoln and Ford’s Theatre, John F. Kennedy and Dallas, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Memphis.
Even less-historic events can shape the public conversation for weeks. Consider, for instance, how folks who are connected, however loosely, to Cornell University are having to talk about a very uncomfortable subject these days.
News creates images that linger, for better or for worse, and the bad PR whammy slammed Tennessee hard last week, as the state made national news in one of the worst imaginable ways. Stories in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and other national news media brought richly deserved attention to Tennessee’s horrific incompetence in carrying out the death penalty.
I was at a gathering Saturday night and found myself chatting with three people from elsewhere in the country. Without exception, they raised the subject of the botched execution of Christa Pike. “What the hell is going on in Tennessee?” I was asked, more than once.
What the hell, indeed. A quick look at the headlines on the subject on the Flyer website last week told the sad story. Here are just three:
“Groups Across the Globe Ask Gov. Lee to Halt Execution of Christa Pike”
“Gov. Lee Denies Clemency for Christa Pike”
“Another Botched Execution; Christa Pike Receiving Medical Care”
The ugly truth is that Tennessee’s clumsy dance with legalized murder has been going on for far too long. Back in 2022, Lee halted the state’s scheduled executions in the wake of a botched (but ultimately fatal) execution by injection. Then, in May of this year, executioners spent an hour trying unsuccessfully to insert an IV into the left arm, then into the feet, hand, jugular vein, and right shoulder of convicted murderer Tony Carruthers. The execution was finally called off and Carruthers was given a year’s reprieve.
And yet, just four months later, the state’s bungling incompetents were up to their lethal follies again, taking two hours trying to kill Pike by injecting pentobarbital before giving up and sending her to a nearby hospital in an ambulance to get life-saving treatment. What ironic lunacy.
And you can add Bill Lee’s name to the top of that list of meat-handed cowboys. The buck stops with him. Period. And isn’t it a mystery how such a loudly self-professed Christian somehow failed to learn any of Jesus’ actual teachings about love, mercy, and forgiveness? As I recall, “Thou shalt not kill” was a commandment, not a suggestion. But it’s clear the deity Lee truly worships wears orange makeup, cotton-candy hair extensions, and has trouble dealing with anyone who doesn’t worship him.
I’ve lived long enough to have had to end the lives of several beloved cats and dogs. In recent years, we’ve had a vet come to our house and help us through the sad process. We talk with our pet, tell them they are loved, stroke them softly. Then the vet gives them a shot that puts them into a deep slumber. When we are ready, she gives them an injection that ends their life — with dignity and without pain. I think the death penalty is inhumane and wrong, but if states are going to execute a living creature, they should be able to do it as well as a veterinarian.
