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Rating: 
Summary: Mad as a hatter
Review: Charles Duff was obviously an inteligent man, so why would he write such dribble. I felt the book could have been summed up in the first few pages, thank God there are few left in the world with beliefs like him.
Rating:
Summary: Mad as a hatter
Review: Charles Duff's was obviously an inteligent man so why would he write such dribble. I felt the book could have been summed up in the first few pages, thank God there are few left in the world with beliefs like him.
Rating: 
Summary: Let's hear it for diatribe in this case
Review: I was delighted to find this obscure work of polemics on capital punishment throughout history and up to the (author's) present. Undertakes a diatribe on captial killing without the reactionary alarm on one hand and the sanctimonious philosphical, social, historical, and otherwise casuistic justifications of Foucault on the other. Actually quite useful when taken as an antidote for Foucault's overwrought "Discipline and Punish." Postmodernists who want to casuistically revel in the delights of capital punishment can go back to their Heavy Metal magazine and their coffee table Witkin. Not exactly art in any sense, this is nevertheless one case where diatribe serves as a welcome comic relief against what is a grotesque side of civilization. There is nothing so sacred about capital killing that we can't poke a little fun at its excesses and abuses too. And for the yo yo reviewer below, let us know when you actually read the book and get near a review.
Rating:
Summary: Let's hear it for diatribe in this case
Review: This is a great manual if you want to hang yourself; you know, amatuers simply strangle and suffocates to death, but that's not how the pros do it. The proper way to do it is to drop enough distance so that you break your neck, and then you don't want to drop TOO far because your neck would fall off (that's ugly, you know). To achieve this, a hangman has to know exactly how long the rope is, and how heavy the extra weight should be, and other huge knowledge base. In fact, it's more an art, because capital punishment doesn't do any good, no one's allowed to see it, it's stigmatized, and its there as an absolute pure art. Now, why don't we put more use to it? Why not make it into the nation's favorite TV show? If the court channel is so popular, imagine what a hit your Execution channel would be! The book goes through all of this in your typical British Humor, and it's great. And if you are smart, you'd realize that this book is actually a book against capital punishment, backed with figures and facts. I myself is not against the death penalty, but the book does make you think. Great book. Don'd read the preface by this whoever, though. It is boring and just plain stupid PC, and it makes you not want to read the book at all. It doesn't have any sense of humor, it tries to push the same ol' conclusions in a hastly manner, a real disgrace. Rip it out. Just go for the actual thing! If it hadn't been for this, I would have gave the book 5 stars.
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