Please read your TCASK Abolition Update email today. PLEASE!

Yes, it's true that the Tennessee Department of Corrections needs to know that one paltry hearing with almost no warning or notice is not enough to allow Tennesseans to truly have input on a process as serious as our state killing a person (see previous posts here, here, and here). But that's not the reason that I want you so desperately to read your email.

Honestly, the reason is because I hate computers. Now Stacy and I are not computer people, but we have some terrific volunteers who help us out with all stuff techy. Joe Irrera has done an amazing job creating a database for TCASK which allows us to send out targeted email blasts, sort our list by legislative district, or geographic area, or anything. But we are having huge troubles getting our email program working. And we can never seem to get an e-blast out properly.

So last night, we were at it again. We started the email program and went out for a dinner meeting, only to return to find both office computers crashing. So there I was, a little after 8:00 at night and having to restart and resend and try ensure that we don't send the same email to someone 3 or 4 times.

Eventually, the wonderful James Staub joined me (James knows so much more about computers than I do that it's staggering) and tweaked and tugged at the machies until we finally got all the emails out. But by that time, it was about 12:30 or so. And without James, I might never have gotten home last night!

So, please read your email and take action to ensure that we get a real public hearing (that the public actually knows about in advance). And please know that, if your emails aren't formatted properly, or you're getting double emails, or sometimes none at all, we certainly are trying! Hopefully, we will very soon have all of this figured out and we can concentrate on those other things - like the pesky little details of actually abolishing the death penalty!

(As a funny aside, I had tried to include some pictures with this post, but, for some reason, I cannot get my computer to properly upload them. Ah, irony.)