Killing Megrahi? Obviously that won’t fix things. What about killing him 270 times? Not possible, but even if it were it still wouldn’t eliminate the suffering of the victims’ families, nor would it create a reason for their deaths.

It seems to me that attempting to create justice in a situation where there is clearly a permanent injustice is a vain attempt to reverse suffering after it has happened. Ironically, the way people tend to do this is by inflicting suffering themselves. Let him rot in a cell. Let him suffer and die away from his family. Justice must be served.

But surely we need punishments for crimes!

Of course we do. Let’s examine why we have prisons in the first place.

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Because I was planning this trip at the last minute, there were a couple of hitches: the cheapest flight to Madison from New York was $800, more than twice as much as I’ve ever spent on a domestic flight in this job. But Madison and food and drink and bikes won, and I spent last weekend reveling in a cyclist-friendly city of 230,000 with a restaurant and bar scene that punches well above its demographic weight. And the lowest-priced bed-and-breakfast with available rooms in Madison was $150 a night, way above my budget. The only bed-and-breakfast I could find in my price range was the Parsonage in McFarland, a suburb about 10 miles out of town that had a small room for a single traveler for $74 a night. That meant adding 20 extra miles to my daily bike routine. Milwaukee to Madison would be by Badger Bus , for $41 round trip. get around by bike. Two weeks ago, I left my travel plans up to a reader vote that just as easily could have had me staying at a chain motel in Nashville and touring city parks by public bus.

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