Death Penalty Debate

Some in the black community (and other groups) are outraged that Troy Davis was put to death.  They point to the unfairness of the death penalty and the disproportionate number of minorities facing capital punishment as a reason to save him and end the practice.  There is much truth in this argument.  In the last few months large numbers of people have held vigils, raised money and ran petition drives.  Countless hours have gone into this man's appeals and raising awareness of his case in the hope that he will be saved from death.  There seemed to be a ground swell of support for this man as evidenced by the media coverage and the vocal arguments made on his behalf by the community.  The consensus was we live in an evil country suffering under an evil unjust government.  I agree with the evil country part... 
    Here is my take: This is sad.  The US executed less than 50 people per year in the last few years while the number of murdered people was more than 15,000.  If each death row inmate had as much support as this man did then there should be 300 (15K/50) more times support for the murder victims.  I haven't heard more than a passing local news story about a standout student killed by a stray bullet or a child killed by her crazy parent.  Where is the outrage against the real evil in our country: the criminals?  Where is the outrage and accusations of a conspiracy to kill and continue the cycles of violence?   Will they march against criminal gangs or organized crime?  Will they raise their voices against drug dealers and other violent criminals? No they attack and defame the government and systems that allows our relatively free society to exist.  Wouldn't it be a better place if these efforts were spent to end crime and the causes of crime that put men like Troy Davis in the situation that leads him to death row?  Instead of fighting for the criminals shouldn't we fight against their evil and instead offer opportunity?  I wish we could bottle up this misdirected sympathy and effect real change.  I'll end it with this.  If a man walks into your house and shoots your husband or wife dead. You will turn to the corrupt racist system to resolve this injustice done to you. You will put your hope into that system to find, stop and punish him for what he has done.  So why use this opportunity to take away its tools, condemn it for its flaws and undermine its authority?  Me,I'd rather use my time to keep that man out of my house....

Yeah about that Hurricane

Yep no big deal.  Many people lost power for up to a week and lots of trees down.  Actually the trees down into power lines was the biggest issue.  A coworker of mine's parents had a tree fall into their house, but it caused little damage.  A minority of people, I know, lost power.  The boat was fine.  One line came loose,  but there were extras in place.  The storm surge was a storm suck.  The water went out of the bay as opposed to up.  They say due to the wind direction.  Now the week after we have had lots more rain from a tropical storm that hit the gulf coast (Lee).  This caused major flooding in the area.  I wonder if the hurricane plus this tropical storm exacerbated the water levels or was the tropical storm alone responsible?
These storms got me thinking about at least having a back up power source, be it a generator or going solar (with batteries for back up).  The generator would require storage which leads me to a fall/winter project of adding a hoist mechanism to the garage for loading items onto the loft.  I thought about this before for buying a snow blower, but I never got one so the project foundered.