Alone on Death Row

LOS ANGELES TIMES, March 26 — The California Supreme Court has upheld death-row regulations that bar spiritual advisors from sharing a prisoner's last hours, the Los Angeles daily reported.

The court unanimously upheld a rule that requires pastors and other spiritual advisors to leave the prisoner 45 minutes before the execution. Prison officials argued that the rule protects the identities of the people performing the execution. Moreover, the state's deputy attorney general argued, the presence of “someone there who does love him and prefers that he live can be very distracting” while the prisoner and the execution team are preparing for the execution.

The lawyer for Thomas M. Thompson, who was executed in 1998, argued that spiritual advisors enhance security by calming inmates. Said the lawyer, “The last minutes before death are of extreme spiritual significance.”

No TV, No Problems

ASSOCIATED PRESS, March 27 — Carol Begley and her family are in the 2% of U.S. households who have no television, the wire service reported.

Begley said that television would distract her three sons from their spiritual lives as Catholics. Other parents without television argued that it allows children's imagination to grow lazy, keeps them indoors rather than outside playing, and exposes them to profanity, sexual images and violence.

Teachers added that TV-free students concentrate better in class. In the average U.S. home, the television is on almost eight hours a day. More than half of children aged 8 to 16 years have a TV in their bedroom.

Boy Scouts Booming in Florida

PALM BEACH POST, March 23 — The United Way of Palm Beach netted a record level of donations this year, including a huge increase in gifts earmarked for the Boy Scouts of America, the Florida daily reported.

Contributors gave $61,540 for the Scouts this year, compared with $19,897 last year. The Post speculated that the gifts were a reaction to a September decision by the United Way's board to cut off donations to the Boy Scouts in 2003 unless the group agreed to allow openly homosexual members.

But the United Way also received $30,000 in “negative designations” — money earmarked for anything but the Scouts.

Christ on Capitol Hill

THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR ONLINE, March 22 — Some senators are up in arms over a Christian “mock trial” to be held in the Hart Senate Office building just before Easter, the magazine's online “Washington Prowler” column reported.

The mock trial, “Can It Be Proven Jesus Rose from the Dead?”, provoked protests from pro-abortion Sens. Barbara Boxer, D.-Calif., and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

But the “Prowler” column slammed the senators for their own choice of events: Both Boxer and Schumer are guests of honor at the premiere of Soldier in the Army of God, an HBO movie that portrays pro-lifers as extremist zealots.