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It is clear from reading his article ‘Scenes from an execution’, that Christopher Hitchens is not striving for objectivity regarding the death penalty issue facing America today. He chooses to use a light, cynical approach to get his views across, rather than the bull in a china shop approach used by many of the groups sharing his views. Beginning with a brief glimpse at the circumstances surrounding the execution of Larry Wayne White, the idiocy of enforcing a zero-tolerance non-smoking policy against a man preparing for a lethal injection, and ending with an obscure quote by Edna St. Vincent Millay regarding the debts due death, we are led down a path highlighting what Mr. Hitchens sees as the absurdity of ‘the practice, not principle,’ of implementing the death penalty. After wading through several references about death by people long gone, ou