Some years ago I decided I would stop travelling to the #USA (having often visited for work & on holiday) as it was not a safe place to visit due to the incidence of #gunviolence.
Recent incidents of killings & injuries caused by householders shooting people who rang their door bell, or let a ball roll into their yard, or who accidentally drove up their drive. alongside the case of someone who approached the wrong car in a car park, have done nothing to change my mind!
#guncontrol now!
That has always been my attitude to the USA except for once:
I nearly made an exception back in 1999 when I was looking for work as a contract programmer and wasn't having very much luck in England as all the major companies had used up their IT budgets fixing the Y2K issues.
As my CV said clearly that I was prepared to work anywhere in the world, I was approached by two agents one with a job for a mobile phone company called Mobistar in Brussels, and one for a company whose name I cannot now recall in New York. I remember the agent saying to me “I hope you're not scared of heights!” so I asked him why and he replied that the job involved working towards the top of the tallest building in the USA. “Errrr, the Empire State Building” I ventured, “No, you’re a bit out of date, The World Trade Centre” he replied. I know he mentioned that the job was on a floor that was 100+ stories up and if I recall correctly, no one from those very high floors got out alive!
The rate was pretty damned tempting at $1000/day and so I would almost certainly have taken the job if offered it but there was a problem with me getting a green card and the employer was in a hurry, so I reluctantly took the job in Brussels for a lot less money! The contract in New York was a long one and I would still have been there when the towers came down!
I seem to have 9 lives - I narrowly missed being on aircraft that crashed (all on board were killed) when I was traveling in India!
I narrowly missed getting wiped out in a road accident when the steering failed on an old Austin 1100. A swivel snapped on the drivers side and the steering gouged out a tidy sized trench in the tarmac but I just managed to wrestle the steering wheel round to take the car up a grass bank on the passenger's side rather than having a head-on collision with an oncoming truck that was going quite quick!
I sincerely hope that you are 'touching wood' when you say all this...
At age 72, and already a cancer sufferer, I take the view that we all have to die of something! As a resident of Luxembourg, I do take comfort in the fact that, I am entitled to ask for medical euthanasia; something that is perfectly legal here, should I succumb to an illness that causes me unbearable suffering.
That's something that I wish would be available to me when I reach that point... hopefully far off right now!
I watched a TV programme about medical euthanasia in Belgium (where it is also legal and practiced). One of the doctors who implements the service held up a vial containing maybe 25ml of a clear liquid and said this is what we use, it causes loss of consciousness in seconds, and a completely painless death in about 15 minutes.
At that moment, I began wondering why the Americans insist on using such barbarous and complex protocols that leave open the possibility that their executions if incorrectly carried out, either accidentally or deliberately, would amount to torture (being paralysed and therefore unable to breathe and thus slowly suffocating to death and/or being conscious when the bolus of potassium chloride goes in would be full on torture).
presumably to cause suffering to the prisoner right up to the end?
@ChrisMayLA6
That is the conclusion toward which I was inevitably drawn.
The protocol used in most states in the USA has the potential to result in death by slow torture.
I'm sure there are plenty of Americans for whom this is a reason for celebration!
