and the diversion of resources from our future into our past...

when we talk about the prohibitive cost of tennessee's capital punishment system we are talking about the wasted $$$ spent in pursuit of revenge cloaked within the disguise of "justice"...

and that's the thrust of dwight lewis's powerful column in thursday's tennessean, "why are we hellbent on bloodshed by the state?" ...

consider this cost observation before you check out dwight's column ... new jersey, which back in january passed a moratorium and study bill similar to the one tcask is supporting, learned from a study that the state had spent $253 million more by having its death penalty system than it would have if the maximum sentence sought had been life without parole ... and new jersey has but 10 people on its death row ... tennessee has over 100 people on death row today ...

can you imagine how many hundreds of millions of $$$ we have diverted from crime victims' services, crime prevention, and, as you'll read shortly, from investing in the quality of life of our children??? - yikes!!! -

dwight lewis is a powerful voice of conscience in the wasteland of much of today's vacuous journalism and those of us in middle tennessee owe a debt of acknowledgement to what he has brought to our community over the years on a range of social justice ruminations ... so as you read his column by clicking here please remember to acknowledge the contribution of dwight lewis to the quality of our public discourse ...

peace out - <3