Fry fish, not people

That's the slogan of Alaskans Against the Death Penalty, an affiliate of NCADP's.

This is no ordinary affiliate. Two of their members happen to be Bill Pelke and Rich Curtner, the chair and the vice chair of NCADP's Board of Directors.

This past Sunday, the Anchorage Daily News ran a great feature story about Bill and Rich:

There are a lot of numbers and percentages on the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty Web site, but meaning can also be calculated in a list of 57 names. They are the names of the Americans executed so far in 2004. They are among 944 people executed in this country since the reinstatement of capital punishment in 1976.

When Bill Pelke looks at this list, the name James Allridge III stands out. Pelke, an Alaskan and one of the most vocal opponents of the death penalty in the nation, corresponded with Allridge for several years and worked throughout August to stop his Aug. 26 execution.

"When I look at that list, his name pops right out at me," Pelke said by phone from Washington, D.C., where he was traveling over Thanksgiving to visit family and promote the cause. "It says that the death penalty is unnecessary. It's totally ridiculous."

You can read the entire story here. The blog recommends it!