This story inspired a strange chuckle:
Japanese Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama said on Wednesday he wanted to consider more ‘tranquil’ methods of execution.
Japan generally executes several convicts a year, always by hanging.
‘I am fully aware that death by hanging is written in the criminal code,’ Hatoyama said after a parliamentary committee meeting, Kyodo news agency said.
‘A square part of the floor opens up and they fall with a thud,’ he said. ‘I honestly wonder if there isn’t a more tranquil way of doing this,’ Kyodo quoted him as adding.
In a related story, American grenades will now be surrounded with foam padding, so that they won’t be as likely to cause any nasty bruises should they accidentally land on a person’s head!
It never ceases to amaze me how far we will go to sanitize or expurgate the processes by which we bring about death. I suppose that such a proclivity bears witness to our desperate need for liberation from what theologian Douglas John Hall describes as “the kingdom of death.”
Thanks be to God for the Lord of Life!