You Say You Want an Execution

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Art Kumbalek

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? So listen, here’s a newsy bit to start your day (to borrow a phrase from the late, great Milwaukee Sentinel columnist Alex Thien), a recent headline from USA (USA USA) Today:

Botched execution in TN raises alarm

2nd failed lethal injection described as ‘troubling’

Let us read on, shall we?

For over an hour, Tony Carruthers lay strapped to an execution gurney in Tennessee’s death chamber as his executioners struggled to find a vein. They tried his arms, shoulders, feet, chest, and the jugular vein in his neck, a witness in the room told USA TODAY.

What about a shot in the dupa? Seemed to always achieve its purpose when I was a kid, what the fock.

The state eventually called off the execution, and in a rare move, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee granted Carruthers a one-year reprieve.

But Tennessee is planning on at least three more executions this year, including an inmate who would be the first woman put to death in the state in more than 200 years. Attorneys for the inmates say that Carruthers’ failed execution raises concerns about what will happen to their clients when it comes time for their lethal injections and are calling for a moratorium on the death penalty in the state.

Reminds me of a little story:

A chemist, a biologist and an electrical engineer were on death row like modern-day witches who expressed pro-science sentiments, waiting for their hot seat on the electric chair. The chemist was brought forward first.

“Do you have anything you want to say?” the executioner asked, strapping him in. “No, sir,” the chemist said. The executioner flicked the switch and nothing happened. Under State law, if an execution attempt fails, the prisoner is to be released, and so the chemist was set free. Next, the biologist was brought forwards.

“Do you have anything you would like to say?” the executioner asked. The biologist said “No sir, just proceed with the evolution of my life on this earth.”

The executioner flicked the switch, and again nothing happened, so the biologist was released. Then the electrical engineer was brought forwards.

“Do you have anything to say?” asked the executioner. “Indeed, I do,” the engineer said. “I’m no Thomas Alva Edison, but I believe that if you were to interchange the red and the blue wires, you might make this thing work.” Ba-ding!

Before I continue, I want to go on record as the first Badgerlander this year to say, “Focking fall can’t come soon enough.” What we got up ahead is nothing but heat, noise, bugs, heat, ear-piercing outdoor music, a couple, three metric tons of seagull crap delivered downward indiscriminately daily, and more heat. June has just begun and already I got the summertime heebie-jeebies, thanks for nothing, I kid you not.

And I recalled some kind of Associated Press poll that found 51% of Americans got some serious doubts about the reality of this Big Bang notion, and that about 4 in 10 cry “baloney” when they hear about evolution or that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old instead of 7,000 like they were taught over by the Church of Science is for Sinners.

These are the nutsticks that most likely don’t believe our modern birds are descended from the dinosaurs, but they ought to get down on their knees and praise evolution for making them get a little smaller, ain’a? ’Cause how’d you like to have to clean your windshield after a flying bronto-focking-saurus just dropped a load on it? Cripes, and when you consider the sheer poundage of that deuce-dookie descending from a couple hundred feet up in the sky, would you even have a windshield after that hit? You tell me.

And then I’ll tell you’s that these loony Luddites seriously doubt that many a modern man sporting the Homo sapien label carries some Neanderthal DNA in his genome blood—some more than others, like those crackpot backwoods Dairyland Republicans who want to secede from the Union and maybe join Canada where we can all get jobs in the thriving Canadian auto industry. And don’t forget that according to archaeologists, for millions of years the Neanderthal man was not fully erect, which is pretty easy to understand ’cause you ever see any photos of the Neanderthal women? Ba-ding!

Science can teach us that nothing really is, or was, as it seems to be right here, right now, that the space between appearance and reality can be vast.

Example: The Wizard of Oz. At the finale, you find out the cowardly lion isn’t really a cowardly lion, the scarecrow isn’t really a scarecrow, and the tin woodsman isn’t really a tin woodsman―and really, what the fock is a tin woodsman anyways?

No sir, I believe scientific research would reveal that these clowns are actually just three itinerant farmhands hiding out in focking Kansas and that each and every one of them would have a police record yea long.

Example: Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter—or so everyone would think. But in reality he was a guy with superhuman strength who could fly and who came from a whole ’nother planet, but no one knew the two were one because of Clark’s clever disguise of a pair of eyeglasses and a sunny disposition, what the fock.

Anyways, in conclusion to this piss-poorly executed essay, from the moment of birth I’m thinking we all begin to serve time on some kind of death row, the hoeing of which hopefully is not altogether unpleasant.

And as to each our own’s denouement, how ’bout one more little story:

Three friends die in a car crash and find themselves at the Pearly Gates of Heaven. Before entering, they’re each asked a question by St. Peter: “When you are in your casket and friends and family are mourning, what would you like to hear them say about you?”

First guy answers, “I would like to hear them say that I was a great doctor and great family man.” Second guy answers, “I would like to hear that I was a wonderful husband and school teacher who made a huge difference in the lives of children.”

And the last guy (me) says, “I sure as heck would like to hear them all say... LOOK!!! THE FOCKER’S MOVING!!!

Ba-ding! ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I’m still able to tell you so.