31.10.06

all hallow's eve: how will it haunt me forever?

well, the mail hasn't come yet, or there isn't any today, so we're free and clear on that front. no haunting letters from prison and/or death row this halloween.

but today is the day of the trial. that's heavy enough. should be short. if he's found guilty, he should be sentenced pretty soon.

i was going to say that my life has become so absurd, but i thought about it and really, my life has always been absurd.


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30.10.06

2 minutes hate

Some of the web's more popular "milblogs" -- blogs maintained by present or former active duty military personnel -- are going quiet following a renewed push by U.S. military officials to scan sites for security risks.
Wired News: Under Fire, Soldiers Kill Blogs

that's cool. wouldn't want anyone to know the reality of the situation, y'know, that a lot of those guys have no idea why the fuck they're there, laying their lives on the line for what appears to be no reason whatsoever, and just want nothing more than to come home. or that some of them might now be a little confused, as the freedom they thought they were fighting for is being stripped from them.

hey, you know what i find silly? all those assholes out there with ribbons on their cars, banners on their blogs and buttons on their coats, saying shit like, "support our troops" and "impeach bush". quit it with the ribbons and the banners and the damned buttons, get off your fat asses and DO something about it. it amazes me how many "impeach bush" bumper stickers and blog banners, etc i've seen. obviously there is strong support for the idea, and yet nothing has come of it. gutless, lazy fucks. a blowjob is impeachable, but murder, terrorism, neglect, dishonesty, sheer stupidity and the shredding of the constitution and the bill of rights is ok with you people? are you fucked?

oh, and...

Boing Boing: Bush legalizes martial law -- what Constitution?

i'll let boing boing's cory doctorow say it for me:
It's easy to get scabbed over about the Bush White House's assault on the Bill of Rights, but every now and again, they rip loose with an attack so egregious, it rips the scab right off. Between the right-to-torture bill and this one, it's clear that Bush intends to bring back the pork-politics glory of the Cold War by reinventing the Soviet Union on American soil.

The elections are coming up in a matter of weeks. Vote America. Throw the traitors out. Install some leaders who love the Constitution more than the raging hard-on they get from settling political disagreements by imprisoning their opponents.

do what cory says. vote. if it's the last fucking thing you do, make sure you vote.

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28.10.06

wait, they don't love you like i love you

once i wrote to mike, confiding in him that i loved that song by kelly clarkson, "since you been gone" and he wrote back, "oh yeah, that shit is slick, man. she totally says, "i'm so moving on" in it."

i was just listening to ted leo's cover of that song, and maps by the yeah yeah yeahs. it made me think of that.

the little shit still makes me laugh.

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27.10.06

reality sets in

i got the form today, from crown counsel, to fill out for the victim impact statement. a bunch of papers, bureaucratically over-explaining every last aspect in horrifying detail...

the part that really gets me, is the line where they ask for my consent to make the statement available to "the national or provincial parole boards, and the federal or provincial corrections authorities", a line filled with terms that, up until now, have only every had any relevance in my life through mike. hard, scouring words. this is fucking real. he could actually go to prison. shit.

two sides of me are at war. i know he did something wrong, and he did something wrong to me, but to be part of the machine that sends anyone to the same place that has made mike and his family miserable feels like i, myself, have become the enemy.

this sucks so bad.


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25.10.06

dilemma, pickle, rock, hard place

as you all probably know already, i'm pretty big into prison issues, prison reform, prisoner's rights, etc. mostly because i love someone locked up but also because i have pretty strong opinions regarding human rights and i don't think there's a prison in existence in the entire world that doesn't violate those human rights on a daily basis.

so a few months back, i was the victim of what they deem a "violent" crime (although i was asleep when it occured, i'm not sure how well the adjective "violent" adds to what happened, but whatever). after about a week of fighting myself, i reported it and an investigation was launched and my world was flipped in all directions. the worst part of the whole thing, was that it was an old friend who'd committed the crime. so i knew if i reported it, all of those stories that i'd read about how the loved ones of prison inmates are affected by their incarceration, even just the accusation and the trial, would apply to a family i'd known since i was 18.

sometime last week a crown prosecutor (american translation: district attorney) called me and told me a plea of not guilty was entered and offered me the opportunity to give a victim's impact statement. i was pretty shocked, first cause they really have no evidence that i'm aware of other than my statement, and second, that they hadn't asked me to testify considering i was their only evidence. but i said i'd think about the vicitim impact statement anyway.

now here's where the problem lies. my entire being is defined by what i believe and i believe very strongly that there are only two purposes prison serves.  one, is to keep dangerous people off the streets to prevent them from victimizing anyone else and two, is for pure revenge. any other reason people spew, rehabilitation, "lesson" teaching, it's all a crock of shit. study after study after study serves up the same results: way more often than not, people leave prison more fucked up than they entered. no rehab or instruction is going on here. prison's main function is to reassure us that some sort of action has been taken. someone does something wrong, we can't do nothing, so we send them to prison and everyone feels like something's been done. warm fuckin' fuzzies all 'round. so, two purposes: keep 'em off the streets, and pure revenge.

being as i'm fairly sane, i don't feel revenge will give me any pleasure. revenge is a cheap, momentary relief and a lifetime of inner suffering. fuck that bullshit. revenge is for the weak. that leaves us with keeping him off the streets, and that's just pure and utter crap. the sentence he might get for something like this would see him back on the streets in very little time. so we take an already fucked up person, stick him in a terrifying, dehumanizing, unrealistic and humiliating institution for a little while, and then open the doors and let him go, time served. that, little kiddies, is also ludicrous. what lack of reason the man already has, will be compounded by the 8x5 cell walls and he'll come out more of a danger than when he went in.

this all begs the question, why not longer sentences? well, really, unless we lock every single offender up for life, we face the same risk. they get out some day and they get out more fucked up. to send a man away for life for what this guy did is absolute insanity.

and that leaves us, under the law, with nothing except a handful of ridiculously punitive shit, like house arrest and probation. what the fuck is that gonna do? nothing.

so basically, this boils down to me having to write a victim's statement to impact the sentencing of someone i don't think should be sentenced under the usual rule of law.

but then i thought about it, or rather, yapped about it with my mom, and i realized it's called a vicitm's "impact" statement. so, it's about how this impacted me. and the whole thing didn't impact me like everyone might think. as i mentioned before, it wasn't violent, it was pretty much just gross. what bothered me the most, and what i struggled with the most was that, here i am, someone who obsesses over prison issues, has two regular pen pals in prison, including one on death row, and the other whom i love more than anything on the planet, being put into a position that could end up with a man being sent to prison. someone for whom prison is most definitely not the answer. this is the shit that went through my head when i fought with myself over reporting it. i wondered how it would affect his family, how would he hold up in prison, blah blah. i dunno, maybe i should have been thinking more about myself in that situation, but really, it was just gross, like a perfect stranger farmer snotting in public and hitting your specs. just fucking gross.

i discussed all this with my mom and i realized, i can say all of this in my impact statement. i can say that i don't think he should go to prison, that i think he needs real help. and in the process i can have my very strong opinions on prison heard in a court of law.

seems ok i guess.


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21.10.06

thank you

i have this picture of you beside my bed. i've hidden most of my pictures of you except this one beside my bed. i hid the majority of them because, at extremely inopportune times, they remind me of things that make me just want to bust out into tears. but this one i've left out is beside my bed and every morning when my alarm goes off, i catch a short glimpse of you before i rise and it makes me smile. it makes me smile to know you're in the world. that simple fact will always make me smile. under any circumstances.

tonight i had a very difficult night. not of my choosing, i just felt very alone going through some things that no woman should ever have to. i was so sad. i wandered into my room at about 2am, sobbing from absolute distraught. and i saw this picture of you beside my bed, with aviators on, a cigarette hanging from your mouth, and your index finger pointing to the camera. i just saw it and i grabbed it off my night stand and looked, and warmth just filled me and i started laughing.

thank you for being alive.

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18.10.06

strange days

so i decide, since he asked for a "break", that i'll slow down on my reading about prison. not because i'm not still interested, in fact, a few days after the devastating letter, i started some book about a mexican prison. but a few pages in, every instance of the word "inmate" sent a shock through my heart so painful, i had to put it down. i decided to leave the prison books alone for a time.

i picked up albert camus' the outsider a few months ago and it was the next book on my mental list of books to read that wasn't some non-fiction account of prison life. i had no idea what the book was about. i didn't even read the blurb on the back cover, i never do, they spoil. soooo, as many of you already know, about halfway through the book, the main character goes to prison, where the rest of the book takes place. i finished it anyway. it was short. short, existentialist bullshit.

i finished the book around 3am on a weekday, and i found myself unable to sleep, saddened deeply by my thoughts, by who the book had made me think about, so i reached over to my night table for the next book in the little pile on it, and it was dostoevsky's crime and punishment. fuck. so i turned to the computer and read about the use of the guillotine in france until i passed out draped in the light cast by my screensaver.

the next evening i catch the flick "get rich or die tryin'" on tv, the one about and starring 50 cent who's acting skills were so humorous i couldn't stop watching. i'm not a huge rap historian so i didn't know he'd been to prison, or that the character goes to prison. whatever. he does. a few scenes in prison, where he meets his friend from cleveland. sigh.

later, A&E's inked was on in the background as i wrote some stupid article for work, and some guy walks in to get a tattoo for his friend in prison. and then dallas swat comes on.

this is just a smattering of instances in which prison keeps popping up in my life. maybe i'm just more alert to this shit now cause i'm so fucking sad about things, but if i could write down every last thing... this blog post would be miles long. i dunno. i feel like nothing makes sense without him. i always have.

every once in a while i wonder how he can just cut this off, and i think he musn't have felt as much for me as i do for him, and then i just shake my brain. that's so fucking selfish. none of this is about me. none of this will ever be something i can understand, no matter how many books about prison i read.

i just wish i could know if he's ok.


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16.10.06

myspace assassin

The 14-year-old freshman was taken out of class Wednesday and questioned for about 15 minutes by two Secret Service agents.

On Friday, the teenager said the agents' questioning led her to tears.

Wilson, an honor student who describes herself as politically passionate. "I'm against the war in Iraq. I'm not going to kill the president."
Secret Service Agents Question Teen Over Bush Threat on MySpace

one horrifying story after another, the once-awesome empire crumbles before our very eyes...

freedom my ass.


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hey arizona...



howja like them apples?

(that line was respectfully borrowed from my dad...)

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begot of nothing but vain fantasy

i had an epic dream about him last night. jesus shit, i hope he's ok.

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11.10.06

blogging for satan

Blogging "often makes the blogger feel good or makes him feel as if his opinion counts - when it is mostly mindless blather!" notes Kevin D Denee.
Blogging 'un-Christian' - shock | The Register

oh come on, is there nothing you christians can enjoy? blogging often makes the blogger feel good or makes him feel as if his opinion counts/accepting christ as your saviour often makes the "saved" feel good or makes him feel as if he matters in the heart of a man who died 2000 years ago. what the fuck is the difference?

i say: fuck, drink, blog and break things. it's all going down anyway.

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strickland for governor

Strickland for Governor | Turnaround Ohio: Revitalizing Our Cities and Towns
As a former psychologist in Ohio’s prison system, Congressman Strickland has worked with inmates and understands the detrimental effects of incarceration on families, communities and the state. Those who are incarcerated are not providing for their families, employed in their communities, or positively contributing to their neighborhoods. They also cost the state $25,280 per inmate annually.

Research shows that education and economic opportunity contribute to a reduction in incarcerations. Many of the policies laid out earlier in this document can create these opportunities and, when implemented, will prevent the number of incarcerations.

Ohio is also faced with the challenges of reintegrating inmates into our communities. Urban areas are frequently the areas that must bear the costs of reintegration; Cuyahoga County alone received over 20% of state prisoners released in 2001. If opportunities to become productive, law-abiding citizens are not available in a community, the likelihood of a recently released inmate returning to prison is increased.


vote strickland, buckeyes. i may not be getting letters right now but i still love the fucker and if life is gonna get even the tiniest bit easier for him because strickland gets voted in, it's gonna be all over my blogs 'til it happens.

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10.10.06

oh amish, thou hast rekindled my faith in man

The evening of the shooting, Amish neighbors from the Nickel Mines community gathered to process their grief with each other and mental health counselors...

...the Amish family members grappled with a number of questions: Do we
send our kids to school tomorrow? What if they want to sleep in our
beds tonight, is that okay? But one question they asked might surprise
us outsiders. What, they wondered, can we do to help the family of the
shooter?

Abolish the Death Penalty: What the Amish are teaching America

this amazes me in a world so fueled by retribution and revenge. but of course, the amish don't watch our fear-mongering television machines or subscribe to cnn's rss feed... y'know, the one who's mission statement is, "jesus GOD! RUN! EVERYTHING IS GOING TO GET YOU!!! and kill you!! oh, and the maiming, lord the maiming... seriously, run really really fast or you'll face a fate worse than a gitmo con" and such. so they're probably pretty free of fear and hateful sentiments toward random groups of people that nancy grace says we should hate. y'know, calm, cool, compassionate, warm-blooded. a rarity, but apparently still very much in existence.


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ladders

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1717/1584/1600/seite_5r.jpg

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today imna blog about this.

xkcd

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3.10.06

so i'm a terrorist... sigh, when do we get the membership cards?

"Here's an article about bill HR 6166, the "Military Commissions Act of 2006" which recently passed in Congress. At first the bill seemed to only concrete the ability of Bush to define the Geneva Conventions and allow torture to be used on detainees. But further analysis digs up the fact that it also defines non-allegiance to Bush as an act of terrorism. It then goes on to include the following into the corral of terrorism: vandals, people who fight near "protected buildings", squatters, petty thieves, and anyone "who with intent or reason to believe that it is to be used to the injury of the United States" collects information (such a broad term) "clandestine" means.

What's more, it also prevents the courts from arguing with it, people from bringing the Geneva Conventions into a defense trial, and prevents people held under these terms from receiving any knowledge of the charges against them - preventing any sort of defense. There is so much more and the bill is over 80 pages long.

It's just outrageous to think that one day BoingBoing might even be considered as enemy activity under these new laws."

Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things

well kids, it's official. i am a terrorist under your new american law.

you know, americans, the more people out there you continue to allow to be legally defined as terrorists, the more people there will be out there who all belong to this "group". at first solely by definition. but you know, human nature is to want to belong, and i hope that by forcing all of these innocent people into this group, kinda like the nerds in high school, that they don't find fraternity in all of this and come after you. YOU are making ALL of us your enemies. not very clever if you ask me.

petty thieves? squatters? you know this sounds familiar right? remember when hitler executed not only jews, but the mentally challenged, the physically disabled? petty thieves? squatters?

it's sad really, to watch your nation crumble, as you cling so desperately to your patriotism, no, nationalism, waving flags and singing anthems, but none of you are willing to stop watching the bachelor long enough to actually invest some time into being a politically active member of what used to be a democracy, and can still be if enough of you did something.

but that's not what is going to happen. you will continue to fall deeper and deeper into the blackness of fascism until none of us will be able to save you anymore. it is said that within 20 years, china's economy will be the most powerful in the world. and you lay in debtful waste spending more and more on your killing sprees. good luck with that. joi gin.

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utter randomness

i was watching a video tonight, starring the moon (here), and i thought about purchasing a little portable telescope and carrying it around with me so i can see la lune in all it's dusty magnificence whenever the fuck i please.

i also thought, during the aforementioned video, about how much i hate those videos that people post that start out quiet and ask you to pay attention for something coming up, usually a UFO or ghost sighting, and you stare and stare and there's a quiet set-up, yawn, boring, then all of a sudden that zombie pops up and there's a terrifying scream. i hate those. i thought maybe the moon video was one of those. it wasn't. good stuff. cause it's like 1:30am and my roomies are asleep and i wouldn't want to wake them up on a week night to the sound of zombie screams.

also, anthony bourdain is fantastic. not only does the man have a giant set of cajones for going to every little nook and cranny on this planet and putting things in his stomach that the majority of us would run from, screaming, but also because the man can write like no one's fuckin' business and i love watching his tv shows just for his beautifully edgy narration.

one of my favorite bits of writing from bourdain is called food and loathing in las vegas from his book, the nasty bits:

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2.10.06

yank-o-centrism

"Game sets players the task of blowing up a U.S. tanker in the Gulf to block the sea route for much of the world's oil supplies."

Iranian video game targets U.S. tanker

uhhh, so? how many american games feature the tasks of having to blow up, mutilate, kill, maim, and torture characters, equipment and transportation from other countries?

fuckin' yanks. can dish it but they can't take it...

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