Vigilante Virus

Why does the United States continue to employ the death penalty when fifty other developed democracies have abolished it? Why does capital punishment become more problematic each year? How can the death penalty conflict be resolved? In The Contradictions of American Capital Punishment, Frank Zimring reveals that the seemingly insoluble turmoil surrounding the death penalty reflects a deep and long-standing division in American values, a division that he predicts will soon bring about the end of capital punishment in our country. On the one hand, execution would seem to violate our nation's highest legal principles of fairness and due process. It sets us increasingly apart from our allies and indeed is regarded by European nations as a barbaric and particularly egregious form of American exceptionalism. On the other hand, the death penalty represents a deeply held American belief in violent social justice that sees the hangman as an agent of local control and safeguard of community values. Zimring uncovers the most troubling symptom of this attraction to vigilante justice in the lynch mob. He shows that the great majority of executions in recent decades have occurred in precisely those Southern states where lynchings were most common a hundred years ago. It is this legacy, Zimring suggests, that constitutes both the distinctive appeal of the death penalty in the United States and one of the most compelling reasons for abolishing it. Impeccably researched and engagingly written, Contradictions in American Capital Punishment casts a clear new light on America's long and troubled embrace of the death penalty.

Jack Russell Terriers are a most lively breed of dogs. Their smallness of size, coupled with their largeness of courage and energy, makes them a winner in the heart of virtually all who know them. Their individual personalities come to the fore in so many ways. You find yourself carrying on conversations with them as though they were other human beings. Then, soon enough, their antics will make you realize you were wrong. They are Jack Russell Terriers. Come along and join this family of Jack Russell Terriers as it takes an outing in the woods. Enjoy the sights of very early spring in Virginia’s hardwood forest as the little group journeys to the Rappahannock River, one of the state’s most scenic. But most of all, listen — you’ll hear the joyful sounds of RUSSELLS IN THE LEAVES.

Griz Wilson only wanted to spend time in the northern Montana wilderness to face head-on his recurring nightmares of grizzly attacks. But he would confront a more sinister challenge when escaped convicts hijack his group. Buckle your seatbelt for fast-paced action as the area's picturesque beauty is colorfully portrayed -- backdrop to a set of intensely memorable characters caught up in a desperate life-death drama that would be a supreme test for all.

Bill Kauffman has carved out an idiosyncratic identity quite unlike any other American writer. Praised by the likes of Gore Vidal, Benjamin Schwarz, and George McGovern, he has, with a distinctive and slashingly witty, learnedly allusive style, illumed forgotten corners of American history, articulated a defiant and passionate localism, and written with love and dark humor of his repatriation. Poetry Night at the Ballpark gathers the best of Bill Kauffman's essays and journalism in defense and explication of his alternative America--or Americas. Its discrete pieces are bound by a thematic unity and propulsive energy and are full of unexpected (yet startlingly apposite) connections and revelatory linkages. Whether he's writing about conservative Beats, backyard astronomers, pacifist West Pointers, or Middle America in the movies, Bill Kauffman will challenge, maybe even change, the way you look at American politics and the American provinces.

About the Book: "Beyond the Masks" is the belief of a group of articulate writers from around the Globe that 'On the Wings of Hope we shall see a new dawn' "Beyond the Masks" is not only an anthology of poems but a book canvassing myriad of emotions and feelings from anguish, anxiety, fears, concern to finally finding hope during the Coronavirus Pandemic.