After reading the posts about why the right hand is good and the left hand is reserved for not-so-good activities I went to Fat Cat's Saloon to swill a few beers with the boys. Luckily Zern was there; he knows all sorts of things and is a really smart guy so I took the opportunity to get his slant on it. I asked if the good/bad thing had any influence on why Islamic law requires that the right hand be cut off if, for instance, a person is caught steeling. Even if he was left handed and picked up the stolen object with his left hand. He took a another gulp of beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand [come to think of it it was his RIGHT hand!] and said "Yah, that is how they sometimes execute folks over there; cut off the right hand..always the right paw". I said "Ya mean to say they don't bandage his stub after hacking off his hand and he bleeds to death right then and there?" He said they sure do bandage them all up properly because they: "don't want the victim to croak too quickly" from rapid loss of blood and shock. By that statement you can readily understand why I'd start to be a bit confused. Because if they stopped the flow of blood so the guy did not bleed-out in a minute or two it would not be an 'execution', as Zern said it was, because the guy could be expected to live. So I just had to ask about this discrepancy in his proffered knowledge. I waited until he has went outside and smoked a cigarette and when he came back in I button-holed him about it. He said "Damn it, don't ya understand that no one could be caught giving him no food 'cause he would rightly be expected to eat it with his left hand. The execution is kinda slow because the guy slowly starves to death". I was then content to drop the subject which was easy because Zern right then went into a spell of coughing and held his hand over his mouth [again, his right hand] to keep from spitting beer all over every one across the table and I had anyways learned more than I wanted to know.
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