For those of us who follow incarceration and reentry issues, the inmate-created, inmate-run, prerelease program in Cumberland, Maryland, that was just approved by the Federal Bureau of Prisons will be something to keep an eye on.
Ideally, Young Men Incorporated (YMI), as the program is known, will prove that switching from curriculum enforcement to the much more coercive power of wisdom and teachable moments is the right way to reinvent prisoner reentry methodology.
Hitting your release date and getting out is a trip. Individual results may vary, but when it comes to civilian employees, frontline custody personnel, and prison administrators, soon-to-parole inmates often face disparagement and placating attitudes. The way some Badges see it, you’re still a criminal, soon to be protected by rights that weren’t there a couple of weeks ago. More than a few are just waitin’ for you to act special, by which I mean individual. Read more
Not since the Satanic Panic of the 1980s have we seen as much moral alarmism and fear mongering as we’re now enduring, with today’s terror over gender-neutral toilets.
Texas and 10 other states filed suit last week challenging the U.S. Justice and Education Departments’ issuance of an Obama directive instructing public schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms matching their gender identity.
Supporters of the lawsuit, filed in a Texas federal court, say the move is designed to protect women and children (presumably from “unemployed homosexuals, deviants, rapists, transgenders, and other sodomites from every state”). Though the actual threat from these jobless homo-nazis is practically nonexistent, according to the Justice Department and others, Texas says it will forfeit $10 billion in federal funding for education rather than carry out the so-called “bathroom law.” BTW, asked if he knows of any instances in which a child’s safety has been threatened by transgender bathroom rights, Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has replied, “there’s not a lot of research.”
But foot-stomping is so much more fun (and vote-garnering!) than adaptive social functioning, isn’t it? Read more
Never mind that President Obama’s prison visit was a public relations handshake event on par with a disaster relief stop by:
I’ll take it.
The man did, after all, pull off a first-ever presidential prison tour without a GOP push-back accusing him of somehow assisting Mexican druglord ‘El Chapo’ Guzman’s recent escape. With adversaries like Obama’s, it’s a downright miracle he hasn’t been vilified for cozying up to his convict martyr buddies.Read more
There are many excuses for not sending holiday cards. Here’re mine:
Christmas cards, holiday cards, greeting cards – whatever people wanna call ’em, I don’t care.
It’s been many years since I purchased a greeting card, because the greeting card industry has become insulting. It pushes homogenized sentiments and condescending condolences that are marketed as if buyers were monkeys. While card aisles and displays are perfectly convenient and, yes, could come in handy someday, I must say I did better in a prison cell with magazine collages, glue sticks, and agitated screamers to my left ‘n right.
Yes sir or ma’am: I heavily promoted my “John has turned over a new leaf” brand by mailing handmade greeting cards to friends and family who were on the fence about me. For one, I was determined to prove that my imagination would never be replaced by swastika tattoos and institutionalized hatred. Watching the arrival and transformation of so many gullible young men into seething and explosive monsters positively inspired me to trade even my meals for whatever I needed to stay creative, expressive, and weird.
And there were just certain things I couldn’t re-embrace upon returning to the civilian world. First among them, coincidentally, was store-bought greeting cards. Why? Because I was fresh out of the joint one day and nudged toward a cousin’s birthday party the next. I looked at the clock, gathered the things I’d need (accessing real scissors was a plus), and never looked back.
All these years and hundreds of greeting cards later, the only downside has been visiting my parents during the holidays to find my own card among their others, displayed writing-side out (as if the interior sentiment were the thing!). Apparently my mom is uncomfortable with the idea of guests commenting on the one that’s “different.” My cards are as professionally made as the Thomas Kinkades, yet the images I choose are antidotal to forced-marching-to-the-glowing-Christmas-cottage.
But never mind all that self-congratulatory poo, here are my excuses for not lifting a finger this year:Read more
The W.H. Correspondents’ Dinner rewards nonfulfillment.
I’m one of those people who respect the President, his family, and their values. I just wish the spectacle of immunity that is the 99th White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner didn’t make me queazy for my country.
It’s nauseating that the self-approving lifestyles and arrogance of our government’s elite will be inescapable when comedy highlights saturate the media this week. What is there for Washington bureaucrats to celebrate these days besides themselves? Our gullibility, maybe?
The whole letting their guard down angle seems increasingly phony when our leaders guard nothing but their own command. Cutesy clips of politicians’ one-liners and zingers aren’t worth having to watch ’em kiss the asses of High Media — and vice-versa. Assurances that our President can be as loose and sharp as Patton Oswalt in the face of pressure isn’t exactly what we need these days, not when his most sulfurous faultfinders and foes are enjoying their salads a few feet away. Read more
Debate #2 of the 2012 election: Obama and Romney answer town hall style questions from undecided voters. Personally, I think I have better chance of convincing Aretha Franklin to give singing lessons to Lana Del Rey than I do of having even one of my questions answered, but here they are anyway.
Oh, and if style, body language, and poise are intended to trump substance, don’t worry – I’ve got that covered too.
Question #1 – Mr. Obama – Reuters is reporting today that a CIA captive and Guantanamo prisoner wrote a note criticizing NBA star LeBron James’s 2010 decision to leave the Cleveland Cavs for the Miami Heat. The note was treated as a top national secret for two months. If these are the kinds of headlines the Guantanamo Bay detention camp generates at this point, don’t you regret your failed pledge to close the camp within your first 100 days in office? Read more
Welcome to the inaugural 2012 Excuses of the Year Awards, in recognition of the San Andreas Fault lines running through the justifications of our favorite national newsmakers!
What better time to launch a contest with special emphasis on whose bullshit is the most moist than in an election year? We know already that two of our “Shame Candidates” will get extra attention in the coming weeks — as will, apparently, some of their supporters. Even late-comers like Al Gore, with his high-flying, high-brow, and just plain high “altitude defense” of Obama’s limp dick showing at the Denver presidential debate last week, makes the cut here — no excuse goes unconsidered. So stay tuned for these other nominees while I go ahead and bypass the whole contest by giving top honors to…
Of course our first champ is former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, convicted of sexually abusing 10 boys over a 15-year period! Yesterday Sandusky was officially banned from spending eternity in Hell by the Devil himself when he accused his judge of rushing his trial, his victims of conspiring against him, and the rest of the planet of making money off of his being a monster in time for Halloween.
You read that right, folks: the day before Sandusky was sentenced to 30-60 years in prison for luring small boys into a game of “Tickle the Old Man’s Penis,” his lawyer actually released an audio statement from his jail cell wherein he claims to be the victim. He’s confident, Sandusky says, that “we” will continue to protest his innocence, and in a particularly glaring sign of soft-headed delusion (plus a fascinating window into inhuman levels of denial), he refers to the very crimes for which he was convicted as “disgusting acts.”
Now THAT’s the mark of a winner. Our winner! I can’t imagine anyone topping this one between now and the end of the year, but I’ll be on the look out.
By the way, Sandusky’s lawyers said they’d appeal his case because they weren’t given enough time to prepare his defense. Ha! That this P.O.S. himself would wind up at the mercy of an excuse is funny and fitting.
The double-edged-sword of getting out of prison.
