Leaving the subject of John W. Carson for a moment…I'm sure we're all properly horrified by the train derailment this morning in Los Angeles that has (so far) left ten people dead and at least 200 injured. It touched a little close to home for me because I have a friend who routinely takes one of those trains every weekday morning. I awoke to an e-mail that he sent to everyone in his address book saying, "I'm home today. I have the flu and I was feeling sorry for myself, but it turned out to be one of the luckiest breaks of my life." Also, if you read the reports, you'll see that it all happened right behind a Costco outlet, and the Costco employees stopped selling original Picassos and ran out to treat the injured. That's the Costco I most often visit when I'm in a Costco kind of mood…and I think next time I'm there, I'm going to stop every worker and express my admiration for their efforts.
According to reports, the accidents were caused by a man who was intent on killing himself. The guy had a police record for drug dealing and had tried slashing his wrists and stabbing himself in the chest. When those didn't work, he parked his Jeep Cherokee on the train tracks, but changed his mind at the last minute, got out and watched the trains hit it and derail. I don't want to be flippant about this but, boy, talk about a guy who can't do anything right.
The news report says he's been arrested, that he'll be charged with multiple homicides and that they currently have him on a "Suicide Watch." Yeah, right. Wouldn't want anything to happen to that lovely fellow. Let's make real sure he doesn't do anything crazy and hurt himself.
As I've mentioned here before, I have mixed feelings about the Death Penalty, especially because I think a lot of innocent people are wrongly convicted. An incident like this train disaster inflames the part of me that thinks if we're darn certain someone is guilty, the Death Penalty may make a lot of sense, and not just in the specific "first degree" situations to which it generally applies. (Amazingly, parking your SUV on railroad tracks and causing something like this probably wouldn't qualify.) But on top of it, I also believe that adults who are relatively sane should have the right to kill themselves. I figure: It's your life and if you want to end it, fine. There should be a little service where you can go, pay a couple of bucks and they'll check you out to make sure you're not just upset because the Lakers lost…then, if all is in order, they'll administer some quick, painless lethal injection or stick your toe in a light socket or make you eat tofu or whatever it takes.
This concept might horrify some but wouldn't that be better than forcing someone to park his car on railroad tracks or (as an acquaintance of mine once did), leap off the top of a Manhattan hotel in front of hundreds of traumatized spectators? In this case, it would also spare us wrestling with the morality of the Death Penalty and having a trial, and making survivors come in and testify and then keeping someone locked up forever. This guy who caused the wreck…we don't need to give this guy a trial. We just need to give him a very large bottle of strychnine — you can probably get them at Costco — and take him off that Suicide Watch.