Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.

More on the 14th and the death penalty

Politics NJ’s Wally Edge has some thoughts on our story on the death penalty. His notion is that Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein “waits to see how her Republican colleague, Bill Baroni, votes before she makes a final decision” on legislation.

He then takes her to task for having no position on the death penalty and likens it to her abstention on an Assembly resolution “opposing the Bush Adminstration’s plan on Iraq.”

Refusing to take positions on core issues like Iraq and the death penalty won’t help her gain enthusiasm among Democratic base voters for her re-election campaign.

While I agree that her non-position is vexing to say the least, and a bit off-putting, I doubt that Democrats will be abandoning her at the polls. The logistics of electoral politics and the importance of maintaining a majority end up overshadowing any misgivings voters have about candidates.

This is especially true in the wake of the 2000 presidential race, one lost by a sitting vice president because he didn’t carry Florida. There are still Democrats who are angry at Ralph Nader for cyphoning votes in Florida and a couple of other close states and possibly tilting the vote toward then-Gov. George Bush.

I doubt that declared Democrats would be willing to allow something like to happen to Greenstein, no matter how angry they might get.

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A foolish proposal

This just smacks of political opportunism — and seems fiscally foolish, given the dire straits of the state’s finances. Taking any revenue stream and directing it toward a dedicated expense can only create problems down the road.

But then, this is the staet group of legislators who have shown little political courage in tackling the problem over the years.

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More doubts on the death penalty

The Star-Ledger comments today on the case of Byron Halsey, who had his double-murder conviction overturned earlier this thanks to DNA evidence tying the crime to someone else — someone who had testified against him during the 1988 trial.

The Ledger correctly notes that

The case is cause for grave concern about police interrogation tactics, lie detector tests, confessions and the overall well-being of the justice system.

The Halsey case is another in a long line of cases in which seemingly incontrovertable evidence — in this case a confession — proves not to be so incontrovertable, after all, the confession apprently coming after a long, difficult interrogation.

That confessions aren’t always what they appear to be is yet another lesson. To many, it seems almost incomprehensible that suspects would confess to crimes they didn’t commit, but criminologists say false confessions are not as rare as some believe.

Halsey’s lawyers had argued that the length and circumstances surrounding his interrogation made his statements unreliable.

It’s a lesson that the federal government should take to heart as it attempts to justify its torture program at Guantanamo and one that should be factored into the debate over the death penalty here in New Jersey.

One of the striking things about this case is that the crimes committed are exactly the kinds of crimes that those who support the death penalty regularly point to as a reason to preserve capital punishment. Halsey was sentenced to life in prison — the death penalty was sought by prosecutors because the murder victims were children and apparently raped, but the jury opted not to impose it.

Consider the candidates for state Senate and Assembly from the 14th District. Four of them — the three Republicans, Assemblyman Bill Baroni, who is running for state Senate, and Assembly candidates Adam Bushman and Tom Goodwin, along with Democratic Assembly candidate Wayne D’Angelo — express doubts about the death penalty, but believed it should be retained for cases of terrorism, child murder and the killing of prosecutors, police or witnesses in criminal cases.

“Can you imagine if a convicted terrorist were allowed to stay alive, letting him continue to rally and support his cause?” (Mr. Bushman) said.

Then again, wouldn’t putting a terrorist to death turn him into a martyr? That, however, is a side issue. The question here is whether we can eliminate doubt from the process, whether we can ever be completely certain of the guilt of the men and women being sentenced to death.

There are other issues surrounding capital punishment — moral and ethical concerns, its effectiveness as a deterrent, etc. — but the question of guilt or innocence and our inability to ever be 100 percent sure seems paramount (and tied back to the moral and ethical issues).

Human nature being what it is, there is no way to ensure that we are not sentencing an innocent man or woman to death. That being the case, how can we not abolish capital punishment?

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New Jersey’s fiscal follies

New Jersey’s finances are a long way from being set on solid ground — and it is unclear whether the state Legislature has the stomach to make the repairs necessary.

Of course, nonsense like this from a former governor who did so much to create the mess from which we are attempting to crawl really do not help.

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Into the blue Sky Blue Sky

I’ve got to say that, so far, this Pop Matters review of Wilco’s new disc, Sky Blue Sky, gets it. (I used to write for Pop Matters, but have not in about a year.)

The new disc, which I purchased from iTunes last night (I plan to buy an actual CD copy at some point, but wanted more than the stream available on the band’s Web site for now), doesn’t break any new ground — perhaps a rarity for this iconoclastic band — and is one of its most unified collections the band has released to date.

It has been compared to Neil Young’s Harvest — which seems apt, though not because the disc sounds anything like Young’s masterpiece. Harvest was more of a folk record than this is — Sky Blue Sky is in many ways a traditional middle-of-the-road rock record, but infused with a sense of lyrical dissolution, the disintegration of a relationship giving way to some level of hope.

Where the Harvest analogy holds water, however, is in its sudden departure from earlier sounds. Harvest was the quiet Neil Young record, coming on the heels of bigger, more explosive records — and captured a need among the rock listening audience for this kind of sound.

Sky Blue Sky fits this mold — though, I am doubtful that it will strike the same kind of cultural nerve. And that is OK. The band makes great records and puts on an explosive live show (I’ve got tickets for the June 22 show in Red Bank) that has a loyal fan base coming back for more and more.

But back to the record at hand. Sky Blue Sky is the band’s breather record — a step away from the angular guitar lines (though not too far) and experiments with feedback and noise that characterized their most recent efforts.

But perhaps that’s too simple — and doesn’t give this gem of a disc enough credit.

The resignation and acceptance of the opening cut, “Either Way” (“I will understand / everything has its plan /either way”), repeats itself through out, trying on different guises, sometimes in the same song (the apologetic whisper that opens “You are My Face” is cut through with a surprisingly twisting guitar line before settling back into its contemplative mode; “Impossible Germany” letting its musical explorations carry the song, keyboard giving way to guitar and then second guitar with Jeff Tweedy’s restrained vocal almost acting as supporting instrument, hanging there but never getting in the way).

Eric R. Danton, writing in the Hartford Courant, sums up the record this way:

It’s a gentler record, split between breezy ’70s-style pop arrangements and folksy songs that are relaxed and sometimes even playful. Tweedy’s lyrics are … well, “happy” isn’t quite right. But he sounds far less anguished, and there’s an undercurrent of philosophical acceptance to much of his wordplay, as if he’s content for perhaps the first time in his career to simply let things be.

The music, though, is more complex than the ’70s sounds it implies, occasionally rising above itself as it does in “Side with the Seeds,” with Pat Sansone’s keyboard driving the first half and Nels Cline’s subdued frenzy of a guitar lead taking the song home (yes, subdued frenzy may seem like an oxymoron, but there is no other way to explain it).

“Shake It Off” shifts in shape and sound, at times jaunty, at times contemplative, while “Please Be Patient with Me” offers a brief look into brittleness and the R’nB-influenced “Hate It Here” explores the pain of being left behind and the way that loneliness infects even the most mundane of daily occurences.

The disc’s emotional core — and its best song — is the single “What Light,” a fresh piece of folkish rock that I’ve been listening to for several weeks (sometimes when I’m running I hear it and then replay it).

It is hopeful and independent and true, and its placement near the disc’s end allows it to act as commentary on all that has come before: “If you feel like singing a song / And you want other people to sing along / Just sing what you feel / Don’t let anyone say it’s wrong.”

I wouldn’t call Sky Blue Sky the band’s finest disc — but then, I wouldn’t make that claim about any of the previous five studio albums, each offering its charms and challenges. Sky Blue Sky does the same, expanding on an impressive body of work.

I can’t wait until June 22.

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