Monday, October 31, 2011

Shut the Door, Lock and Latch It -- Here Comes Lizzie with a Brand New Hatchet

When we go to White Oak, Honna brings the music along. We listen to Kingston Trio, New Christy Minstrels, Smothers Brothers -- you know, stuff from our era. Turbo just kind of puts up with it, asking a question or two on occasion. The first time she heard about Billy Joe McAllister, et al., it led to her doing research and preparing a unit on the ballad for one of the English classes she teaches.  

Anyway, always one of the songs gets into my head and stays with me for a few days upon my return to the real world. Many times I hum "It takes a worried man, to sing a worried song," and after other trips "through the open window, she hands Charlie a nickel," you get the idea. This time around, for no particular reason, it's the Chad Mitchell Trio's greatest hit, "Lizzie Borden."

Song has nothing to do with the churn dash baby quilt I spent a lot of time on. I had to take apart half of the blocks and remake them. And then decided they needed lattice. And cornerstones. And it has turned out to be a quilt that I like very much. I hope the young mother-to-be does, too.

And now, please, enjoy having the song stuck in your head.  You know, you can't chop your papa up in Massachusetts.  Massachusetts is a far cry from New York.

Beware of those scary skeletons.

II would like to welcome Mr. 9-9-9 to the world of big time politics.

It seems that my man forgot one thing while he was jigging and joking his way into the hearts of white conservatives across A-merry-ca: Your skeletons will always come back to haunt you. We all have them. But we don't all try to get elected as the leader of the free world, or, for that matter, to become a member of the most powerful "democratic" judicial body on earth.

And so here we go again; yet another black conservative is the victim of a "high tech lynching". The last one survived the metaphoric rope around his neck and ultimately found himself in a position where he can influence whether a rope is put around the neck of others. 

Apparently when Mr. 9-9-9 was at the National Restaurant Association he wasn't just making sure that all of us had somewhere nice to eat. He was allegedly making sure that he had somewhere nice to.....ahh never mind. (I hate these types of stories.)

Of course, like most politricksters, Mr 9-9-9 (and the GOP) first denied that he sexually harassed anyone. But then....

"Herman Cain is now saying he does recall some details of a financial settlement with one of his female co-workers who accused him of sexual harassment during his tenure at the National Restaurant Association.
Cain's quotes are being reported by Byron York of The Washington Examiner, based on the GOP presidential candidate's interview with Fox News to be broadcast at 10 p.m. ET Monday night.

Cain spent the day trying to beat back a Politico story that said he was accused twice of "sexually suggestive behavior." Amid his explanations that he had been "falsely accused," Cain twice said he knew nothing about a financial settlement with his accusers." [Source]

Yes, that pesky "financial settlement". Bad news Herman: It exists. Good news Herman: The folks who got the payoff are probably prohibited from divulging the details of the settlement to the rest of us.

But I take no pleasure in watching yet another high profile brotha go down. I don't care how much he jigged for his wingnuts friends and hated and demonized his own people. It's always sad to watch a tragedy such as this play itself out for all the world to see and hear.

"Come on Field, it's not only republicans who do this type of thing. What about Bill Clinton? He was getting pleasured in the people's house for crying out loud and you people defended him!"     

And I would defend Mr. 9-9-9 if whatever he was allegedly doing was between two consenting adults. Sadly, for conservatives, it never seems to be that way. If it was, there would be no charge of sexual harassment.

But the show must go on, and conservatives will now start the spinning:

"In summary: there is a real story here. It's possible thatPolitico got the story wrong, in which case they will be exposed. It's also possible that the story is totally accurate, and yet Cain is innocent of any wrongdoing.

There are plenty of reasons, after all, why a businessman would settle a harassment suit even if he were blameless. The final possibility, of course, is that Cain did behave inappropriately toward women he worked with. Let's hope that's not the case.

A few final points: the accusation that Politico is unfairly liberal (made by Jeff Lord, among others) is itself unfair.Politico undoubtedly employs reporters from liberal media backgrounds, including at least one of the reporters who contributed to the Cain story, Ken Vogel.

On the other hand, they also feature writers hired from conservative outlets. It's worth noting they have published pieces by a number of Spectatorwriters, myself included. " [Source]

Those few paragraphs alone had more twists and turns than a Jamaican country road. But I understand the difficulties that conservatives must be having with this story. It must be sad for them to watch Herman go down. Where else are they going to find a a straight talking black man who is willing to take on uncomfortable subjects and speak of certain things that they are too afraid to utter publicly?

Still, they need to take heart, because, the truth is, Herman Cain was never going to become president, and this story might just make him irrelevant sooner rather than later. Which, in the end, might be a good thing for them.

Happy Halloween everybody, and please make sure that those scary skeletons stay inside the closet.

Church Potluck Recipe: Tortellini Salad






I wish I had a picture of this tasty dish. Here is an easy tortellini salad recipe that my friend makes that everyone enjoys!



Tortellini Salad

1 lb. tortellini cooked (cheese or meat stuffed)
Cubed cheddar cheese,
Green pepper, diced
Green onions
Black olives
Green olives
Cherry tomatoes, halved

Mix the above together in a large bowl. Then add the following and mix well. Chill overnight.


Dressing:

¾ c. oil
¼ c wine vinegar
2 t Grey Poupon Mustard
Salt and pepper to taste





Case dismissed: AZ prison privatization moves forward.


Challenge to Arizona private prisons dismissed

Arizona Republic


A suit seeking to temporarily block the Arizona Department of Corrections from contracting for up to 5,000 more private-prison beds was dismissed Friday in Maricopa County Superior Court.

Without addressing the public-safety and fiscal issues raised by a Quaker prison-watchdog group, Judge Arthur Anderson ruled that the group lacked legal standing to prevent the state from issuing the contracts.

A Corrections spokesman said the department is still evaluating proposals from four bidders and that the dismissal of the suit won't affect the timing of any award.

Corrections, which previously had expected to announce an award as early as last month, recently asked the four companies - Corrections Corp. of America, Geo Group, Management and Training Corp., and LaSalle Corrections - to keep their bids open until Nov. 22.

In its Sept. 14 suit, the American Friends Service Committee's Tucson office, which monitors state prisons, said that Corrections had failed to comply with a long-standing state law on private-prison contracts. That law requires the department to perform detailed biannual studies comparing private-prisons contracts with the operations of state-run prisons.

As The Arizona Republic first reported in August, the department has never conducted these studies, which are supposed to analyze costs, the security and safety of each prison, how inmates are managed and controlled, inmate discipline, programs, health and food services, staff training, administration, and other factors as compared with state facilities.

The suit charged that without these studies, the state can't say whether private prisons are more cost-effective than state facilities, as state law requires. The department said it will complete the first of the required studies by January.

Caroline Isaacs, the committee's Arizona program director, said the group is considering whether to appeal or take other legal action.

"Our concerns remain unchanged," Isaacs said

Stolen Art Watch, Cavalier Attitude Towards Recovery, Benghazi Booty, Hidden Not Lost



Hopes linger for stolen old master

IN 2007, Art Gallery of NSW director Edmund Capon said he had an intuition that he would never again see a tiny, 350-year-old Dutch masterpiece, which was stolen from the gallery on a winter's day that year.

So far, he's been proven right.

A Cavalier, by Dutch artist Frans van Mieris, valued at $1 million, is on the FBI's Top 10 list of art crimes.

One man who always keeps an eye out for news of the missing painting is New York scholar and art dealer Otto Naumann, who is regarded as the world expert on van Mieris paintings.

Sadly, says Mr Naumann, the chances of some Dr No figure selfishly caring for A Cavalier in some climate-controlled shagpile penthouse are almost non-existent.

The reality is there's a 50-50 chance the painting has been destroyed. Mr Naumann says there is no single documented case of a wealthy individual commissioning an art theft.

"It's not human psyche to have something that important and not tell anybody," he says. "We make it up because it sounds like a nice story."

Australia's biggest art heist involved one very small painting, just 16cm x 20cm, which was apparently removed from a wall with a Philips head screwdriver on a Sunday morning, when the gallery was full of people.

That part of the gallery had no CCTV and its disappearance remains a mystery.

"You could just put it in your pocket," says Mr Naumann, who had seen the painting numerous times, including in the Sydney gallery and in London before it was bought by James Fairfax, who donated it to the gallery.

Mr Naumann believes if the painting still exists, chances are it will come to his attention because someone may need his expertise to assess its authenticity.

Priceless Treasure Looted from Benghazi Bank Vault

Part of The Treasure of Benghazi collection that has been looted contained Silver didrachm

A priceless collection of nearly 8,000 ancient gold, silver and bronze coins much of which dates from the time of Alexander the Great, was stolen by robbers who broke into a bank vault in the Libyan city of Benghazi.

Robbers reportedly made off with the priceless Treasure of Benghazi after drilling through a concrete ceiling into an underground vault at the National Commercial Bank of Benghazi where the collection had been kept, waiting for the opening of a museum that was never built.. The raid has been described by an expert as 'one of the greatest thefts in archeological history.'

The treasure included more than 10,000 pieces, with 7,700 coins dating back to Greek, Roman, Byzantine and early Islamic times, several artefacts, including monuments and figurines of bronze, glass and ivory, as well as jewellery, bracelets, anklets, necklaces, earrings, precious stones, rings, gold armbands and medallions, are also believed to have been stolen by the thieves. Most had been discovered during the Italian occupation of Libya and were taken out of the country.

Dr Saleh Algab, the chairman of the Tripoli Museum, has said that the coins were never photographed or documented and seemed to have been forgotten. He added that although not the only collection of ancient coins in Libya, they were a hugely valuable representation of the mosaic of Libyan history

Whilst the break-in was initially believed to have been part of the uprising against Muammar Al Qathafi early in the conflict that managed to overthrow the former dictator, Fadel al-Hasi, Libya's acting minister for antiquities, told the BBC there were suspicions the robbery could have been an inside job. The bank's employees have been questioned several times.

Hafed Walada, a Libyan archeologist working at King's College London seems to agree with the theory that it might have been “an inside job”, adding that it appears to have been carried out by people who knew what they were looking for.'

He went on to say that the treasure had been there for many years, and not many people knew about it. The robbers even ignored cash that was in the vault. They just concentrated on the ancient treasures, leaving items of lesser value untouched. He said that in terms of Libya’s historical heritage, “this was a major theft.”

Most of the Benghazi treasures had been on Libyan soil following a mass recovery of the collection between 1917 and 1922 from the temple of Artemis, in Cyrene - an ancient Roman city, now Libyan territory and otherwise known as Shahat.

During the Second World War, much of the treasure was on display at the Museum of Italian Africa in Rome, but eventually returned to Libyan soil in 1961 and was kept at the bank.

UNESCO chief Irina Bokova described the theft as a "disaster", while Italian archeologist, Serenella Ensoli, from the Second University of Naples insisted the treasure was priceless given its historical value. She has been reported saying that the collection is not well studied and is a huge loss for Libyan heritage.

Mr al-Hasi alerted Interpol about the theft that took place in March, in July. He said international antiquities markets were being monitored. Libya's National Transitional Council is believed to have kept it quiet perhaps for fear it could tarnish the uprising's image in the fight to oust Muammar Al Qathafi from power.

Details of the robbery emerged at a conference held by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation, or UNESCO, held in Paris last week.

Metal storage cupboards at the National Commercial Bank of Benghazi were smashed open and the red wax seals on the wooden trunks housing the collection were broken after the gang drilled through a concrete ceiling.

Since the robbery, ancient gold coins have turned up repeatedly in Benghazi's gold market, and early leads had initially pointed to neighbouring Egypt, where a farmer was caught with a three-inch high gold figurine and 503 coins which may have come from the collection and that he had been attempting attempted to smuggle through the port city of Alexandria,

UNESCO has now warned art dealers and police forces around the world to look out for pieces from the Treasure of Benghazi.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Best. Gift. Ever.

I'm totally not bragging on myself.
Though it will sound like I am...
I just gave the best gift ever.
It's a birthday prezzie for my friend Susan:
A doodle from the happy & talented Kitty of Kitty Pink Stars on Etsy.
Kitty was so amazing to work with.
And the doodle makes me so happy.
But, more importantly, it makes the birthday girl happy!
Excuse me while I pat myself on the back.
I'm not bragging.
Really.

Week in Review: October 24-30

Last week was I...

...made a costume for a grumpy pirate.
...stitched up an owlie outfit for a rather giddy girl.
...went bowling.
...made a scarecrow.
...drank lots of caramel apple cider.
...drank lots of spiced chai lattes.
...started working out on my Wii Fit Plus.
...started drinking lots more water.
...realized that it's getting really cold.
...wished I had more time to knit warm things.
...scoured youtube for more knit stitches to try.
...was blessed by my church family.
...ate too much fast food.
...painted my fingernails.
...jumped.
...continued reading "On the Banks of Plum Creek" to the girls.
...made muffins.

Just to name a few.

Click HERE for a photo play-by-play.

Sewing and Snowing, Near Philadelphia and Lancaster County

The weekend just ending was our semi-annual White Oak Getaway.  My Crud was not totally gone (nor is it yet) but I was not to be deterred.  Honna and I drove out Friday after work, leaving too late to do any shopping on the way.  We arrived shortly after the wine and cheese had been set out, and promptly settled in.

Two of our regulars were unable to go this time, but we had two terrific ringers, including none other than Suzan, who endeared herself immediately by presenting each of us with a tiny trick or treat bag that she had made and loaded with treats.

There was the usual variety of projects, but I forgot my camera so am relying on the kindness of colleagues to illustrate the weekend.  Judy took this picture of Helen holding up her coffee quilt.

Saturday morning we woke up to falling flakes.  Certain that the 1-3" forecast would hold and perhaps be an exaggeration, Honna and I set forth after breakfast to shop in Intercourse.  She went to Zooks and I to the Old Country Store.  I noticed that they've done some rearranging and have a lot more kits than they used to have, including some very small CW looking projects that I resisted, even though they were enticing.  I bought a few things that I needed.  

On the way back, we stopped at the Bird-In-Hand shop and although they did have the D-rings that I needed and could not get at OCS, I don't believe we will return.  The trip back to White Oak was interrupted by a car accident on a snowy uphill hogback road; we had to turn around and go back down, with no idea how to get back to the inn.  The two cars ahead of us turned left and Honna concluded that they must have a GPS (which I've never felt the need for since I don't go to unfamiliar territory often), so we followed them for a while, but when they turned right, we decided to turn left and after a bit of very rough road, I realized that I knew where we were -- it was on the route I'd taken for my early morning walk the last time I was at White Oak!  We got back just in time for lunch and Carol's delicious soup never tasted so good.

Honna wanted a bag-making lesson on Saturday night and Helen wanted a refresher.  I needed to make a bag myself for a gift, so we began prairie pointing and handle-making.  I'd bought some Pellon 987F fusible fleece at OCS since they didn't have the stabilizer I normally use, and I was delighted with the result.  My bag is in the middle (I made another, too, but didn't get a photo of it) and Helen's is the teal and chartreuse batik.  Honna's is the sweet sunflower print and I was very impressed with what a fine job she did on her first attempt.

All too soon it was Sunday morning.  To our amazement, the newbies offered to go out and brush the considerable snow off of everyone's cars!  What a lovely thing for them to do.  Someone said that they must really have wanted to be invited back.  And that had been settled hours earlier -- they were wonderful additions to a terrific group.  Already counting the days until we return!



To squash, or not to squash, that is the question.

As we approach Halloween, I have a truly scary story for you fellows.

Now, I must admit, that a long long time ago (a really long time ago; waaaaay before Mrs. Field) I considered myself somewhat adventurous in the  boudoir.

But in all of my travels I never heard of some kinky s^%* like the following:

"Woman Reveals Potentially Fatal Sexual Fetish Called “Squashing”

Some sexual fetishes are freaky, nasty and most have an acquired taste, but there are some that are life-threatening and "squashing" is one of them.

"Massive Mocha" is an advocate for the apparently erotic act of sitting on a man until he is almost unconscious as a part of foreplay." [Story]

Wait a minute now, squashing?!! If any of you reading this have been on this sexual adventure please holla at your boy. They never had this kind of stuff when I was living the single life. But, then again, I am not sure that any of the women that I dated could have pulled it off. *shaking head*

And finally, speaking of scary stories...

"A veteran air traffic controller who directed Michelle Obama’s plane into the potentially dangerous turbulence of a massive military jet this year also made a mistake that nearly caused a collision involving a U.S. congressman last year.
The circumstances of the April 18 incident — in which a plane carrying the first lady and Jill Biden, wife of the vice president, came too close to a C-17 while approaching Andrews Air Force Base — was outlined Thursday in a report by the National Transportation Safety Board.

I was thinking that he was a tea party plant until I read the next part of the story...

"The controller responsible for the mistake, Breen Peck, was also involved in an incident in June 2010 when a United Airlines Airbus 319 carrying Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) came within 15 seconds of colliding with a smaller jet while approaching Washington.

The United pilot could be heard saying “That was close” on the radio. He reported pulling up hard after a cockpit collision warning went off, narrowly missing a 22-seat commuter jet.

“At the very least, the [Federal Aviation Administration] should have retrained the controller after the incident on June 28, 2010,” Sensenbrenner said, “and then fired the controller after the error that caused the first lady’s flight to abort a landing at Andrews Air Force Base.”

Peck is in the midst of a comprehensive retraining program that began shortly after the Obama plane incident. He said Thursday that he has been trying to get transferred from the Potomac Terminal Radar Approach Control facilities in Warrenton, which controls all traffic in and out of the region’s three major airports.

“I’ve been trying to get out of here for several years,” said Peck, who acknowledged his involvement with both flights." [Story]

Mr. Peck, here is one blogger who hopes that you get your wish.   

Stolen Art Watch, Sunday Global Review, Everyday Bread & Butter Art crime


Thieves steal £25,000 worth of antiques from mansion house

http://news.stv.tv/scotland/tayside/276720-thieves-steal-25000-worth-of-antiques-from-mansion-house/

Middlefield House near Cupar was targeted at some point in the past three weeks.

Thieves made off with £25,000 worth of antiques from a mansion house in north-east Fife.

Middlefield House near Cupar was targeted at some point in the past three weeks after the theft was discovered on Thursday.

Large bronze ornaments were stolen from the fireplace in the drawing room of the stately home, including a sculpture of a horse and jockey.

Two large painted vases were also taken by the thieves, which owners claim have sentimental value.

Fife Constabulary is investigating the theft from the home and are appealing for information regarding the taken items.

Commonwealth gold medal stolen in £20,000 burglary

Jewellery worth almost £20,000 including an antique Commonwealth Games gold medal was stolen in a burglary at a house in Bath Road, Thatcham, on Tuesday.

The intruders removed a door from its hinges to get into the house and stole a range of items with a total value of £17,800 between 11.30am and 12.15pm.

Among the pieces stolen was the antique medal which is oval, two inches long and one-and-a-half inches wide, a Breitling Colt Super Ocean watch with an orange face and a blue leather strap and a men's steel and gold Rolex watch along with the box and guarantee papers which have a stamp from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

ANTIQUES worth thousands of pounds were stolen in a burglary in Shepperton.

Images have been released in a bid to help trace the valuable items, that include around 70 ceramic Staffordshire figurines, (photo, above) antique silver candlesticks, and a silver candle snuffer.

The items, thought to be worth up to £20,000, were taken during a burglary at a home in Russell Road between 10pm on Monday (October 3) and 7am on Tuesday (October 4).

A silver sugar shaker, a carriage clock and a Georgian barometer were also taken.

Detective Constable Brett Harris, of Staines CID, said: “Many of the stolen items are collectables and I am appealing to the public, in particular collectors and businesses owners in the antiques trade, who may have seen them or been offered them for sale.

“These items are of great personal value to the owner who was understandably upset to have had them stolen and we are doing everything we can to try and recover them."

$23,000 Worth of Art Stolen From Castroville Home - Central Coast News KION/KCBA

CASTROVILLE, Calif--

A big Central Coast art heist. It's not at a home in Pebble Beach or at a gallery in Carmel or even in Monterey. It was at a mobile home in Castroville.

The Monterey County Sheriff's Department said someone broke into a home at the Monte Del Lago mobile home park and stole six paintings totaling $23,700.

Teresa Gilbert lived at the mobile home park for 10 years and said while stolen art work might be new to the neighborhood, robberies aren't.

"We have a lot of day time robberies, mostly jewelry, not so much artwork," said Gilbert. "I don't think there's that many people that have expensive artwork."

But somebody living here claims they did, and someone broke into their home while they were away to take it.

"To think somebody is that brazen just to walk right up and clean people out while their not home," said Gilbert.

Clifford Morrison also lives in the area and said crime seems to be on the rise. "There's been a lot of thieving going on here. Cars getting broken into and houses, and vandalism and a lot of painting like spray painting on the walls and cars and stuff and breaking windows," he said.

The victim told Monterey County Sheriff Deputies someone stole 3 prints by Peter Mack, 2 by Alex Pauker and 1 by Thomas Kinkaid.

And while high end art work may sound odd to you at a mobile home park, Gilbert said she owns some too and is now on guard.

"You get people that come to the door, trying to, you know, we want to clean your carpet or we want to do this or that, " she said. "They're looking around and you never know if it's somebody that's going to come back later."

The Monterey County Sheriff's Department said it happened between October 21-25 while the homeowners were out of town. Deputies said nothing else was reported missing and it remains under investigation.

Central Coast News talked to the manager on duty at Monte Del Lago, Thursday night, and she said she wasn't aware of this incident but would be getting in contact with the department.

Austria, Eighteen Paintings Stolen In Art Raid

The pros came at night, cracked the door, knew exactly what they searched for: Presto, they cut 18 valuable paintings from the framework, escaped unrecognized! The millions coup in Vienna: According to the Federal Criminal Police Office (case: 2688517) captured a burglar gang in a targeted operation in September the same 18 masterpieces at one stroke. Although the investigators deliberately conceal the crime scene, art experts come from a rich private collector. Alone seven masterpieces of Vienna star artist and enjoy Muse Soshana (84), but also oil paintings were stolen by Kokoschka-student Georg Eisler (1928-1998), Ernst Fuchs disciples EROL Denec (70), the Bregenzer painter RudolfWacker (1893-1939), or the Tyrolean artists Hans Joseph Weaver-Tyrol (1874-1957).

ALEC, pot, and the profit potential of prisoners.



---------from NationofChange.org----------


Dispatches from the Field: Prisoners - America’s New Cash Crop

By Cynthia Johnston

A disciplined minority of totalitarians can use the instruments of democratic government to undermine democracy itself. ~ Hannah Arendt

At the 2011 dedication ceremony for the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial, many speakers, including President Obama, quoted from King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, in which King eloquently spoke out for freedom and justice. Yet almost fifty years later King’s son, Martin Luther King III, says his father’s dream has not been realized, that America has “lost its soul,” in part by “having more people of color in prison than in college.” He is not wrong. According to the Drug Policy Alliance, in the last decade nearly one in three African-American men aged 20-29 was under criminal-justice supervision, while more than two out of five had been incarcerated.

At his 1963 March on Washington Dr. King said, “We have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition.” And so we have. Because today, with for-profit prisons a burgeoning growth industry, the incarceration rate of people of color can be extrapolated to the population at large. Indeed, one out of every one hundred adults in America today is incarcerated, and one out of every thirty-two is somewhere in the system – either on probation, on parole, or behind bars. Put another way, the United States has five percent of the world’s population and twenty-five percent of the world’s prison population. And more than half of these arrests are for marijuana.

 
The FBI puts the number of marijuana arrests over the last decade alone at 7.9 million. This was not caused by the laws of supply-and-demand for weed. This was caused by the laws of supply-and-demand for prisoners and, hence, for profits. Since 1984, when privatization of prisons was made legal again, after having been stamped out in 1928 due to gross abuses against prisoners in the name of profit, the for-profit prison industry has moved quickly to expand into as many states as possible before enough resistance could be amassed to stop them. And with each new prison constructed, there is a need for more prisoners to fill it.
 
In the intervening years, lobbyists for the corporate, for-profit prison industry have spent millions of dollars per year writing laws and implementing strategies to put people in prison for as long as possible. The harsher the policies and the longer the sentences, the more money flows into these corporations from the government. And nothing grows the prison population better than the War on Drugs -- a war funded by taxpayers, some of whom are later fed into the machine, including those you’ve met, and others you will meet, in these pages.
 
Big Money Machine
 
Back in my political days there was a running joke in Washington: the “building trade” unions would build their own prison camps for the jobs. Not so funny any more, given that California’s prison guard union -- the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, or CCPOA -- was a driving force behind California’s “Three Strikes and You’re Out” law, a law that requires a mandatory 25-years-to-life sentence for a third “similar” felony, even if that felony is shoplifting.

Three Strikes is one of a systematic web of laws designed to incarcerate the maximum number of people for the longest possible time; a web of laws that creates a self-perpetuating money machine for its creators – a cabal of corporations and lawmakers with the shared goal of growing America’s prison population for profit; a web of laws written by special interests and introduced by the legislators they have bought with campaign contributions. Just one small example of the way our democratic system of government has been hijacked by the corporate thugs, greed-heads and fixers of America’s sprawling prison cartel.

Former Navy journalist and “conserva-tarian” co-founder of All American Blogger Duane Lester reports that in only three decades CCPOA has become one of the most powerful political forces in California. In an article published by FreeRepublic.com, he wrote that the union has contributed millions of dollars to support Three Strikes and other laws that lengthen sentences and increase parole sanctions (the sentences imposed when a parolee violates the terms of parole). After then-governor Pete Wilson backed Three Strikes, the prison-guard union donated a cool million to his campaign.

Don’t Look For The Union Label

On a much more insidious scale, a right-wing lobby group, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), writes ‘model bills’ (legislation to be enacted in one state and replicated in others, also known as ‘copy-cat laws’) for corporate sponsors like Koch Industries, Exxon Mobile, BP, American Bail Coalition, R.J. Reynolds, Wal-Mart, Phillip Morris, Pfizer, AT&T, and Glaxo Smith Kline, to name a few – including bills specifically designed to exploit cheap prison labor on behalf of profit-making corporations.

Writing for thenation.com, labor journalist Mike Elk and blogger Bob Sloan detail ALEC's “instrumental role in the explosion of the US prison population in the past few decades,” explaining how ALEC pioneered some of the toughest sentencing laws on the books today – mandatory minimums for nonviolent drug offenders, Three Strikes laws, and so-called truth-in-sentencing laws, which require violent offenders to serve 85% of their sentences before being considered for release. After ensuring that more prisoners would be incarcerated for longer and longer periods, ALEC then “paved the way for states and corporations to replace unionized workers with prison labor.”

The “convict lease program,” instituted in the South after the Civil War, was the precursor to today’s for-profit prison industry. The then-governor of Mississippi imprisoned freed slaves and then leased them out to a private party who could work them to death, and often did, with no pay. It took churches, families, and civil libertarians sixty years to wipe these laws off the books and the Reagan Administration no time at all to bring them back.

Only a lobby funded by profit-driven corporations would replace preexisting laws with legislation like the Prison Industries Act, allowing “the employment of inmate labor in state correctional institutions and in the private manufacturing of certain products.” A federal program called PIE (Prison Industries Enhancement Certification Program) conveniently certifies prison work programs for exemption from federal restrictions on prisoner-made goods in interstate commerce.

Prison labor for private profit was illegal before ALEC came along. Now the lobbyists have instituted two federal programs to regulate and certify prison labor. Just goes to show what money can buy.

In Florida, an outfit calling itself  PRIDE (Prison Rehabilitative Industries and Diversified Enterprises) now runs forty work programs where inmates manufacture “tons of processed beef, chicken and pork,” as well as office furniture and other commercial items – for twenty cents an hour.

Aside from the obvious slave labor issue, here’s another concept for you: the intersection of processed meat with prison hygiene. I’ve heard the stories about prison conditions -- a hundred-and-twenty to two-hundred inmates in gym-sized rooms; fifty or more sharing a single filthy toilet, without privacy or sanitation. “Some guys just shit in the shower,” said a friend who spent a few eye-opening nights at L.A.’s Twin Towers. And these guys are processing tons of meat that wind up, among other places, in school lunches.

Granted, prison laborers featured on a recent exposé on CNBC, entitled “Billions Behind Bars,” worked in facilities outside the prison, and wore gloves. But that was a single example in Colorado – a 6,000-acre complex with fifty businesses, including a goat farm and a fish farm, staffed by inmates. Colorado Correctional Industries, a division of the state Department of Corrections, which runs the complex, is on “a mission to save taxpayers’ money while helping to rehabilitate Colorado’s inmates.” Perhaps. They also happen to garner $56 million per year in revenue. But elsewhere, and for twenty cents an hour, how motivated could long-term prisoners be to maintain pristine job-site sanitation standards? Especially when they work under threat of punishment if they refuse to work?

In a 2007 letter to prisonersolidarity.org, an inmate wrote that he and other prisoners at Ohio State Penitentiary had been trying for seventeen months to call attention to inhumane conditions such as “broken toilets that leak profusely, the urinals that overflow onto our feet, and the lack of ventilation that results in fumes and condensation that are unbearable at times.” Even if they are transported elsewhere to work, how clean can they be? Yet, these are the living conditions many inmates endure. Conditions bad enough to cause one man to commit suicide at Dickens County Correctional Center in Spur, Texas – a prison run by the for-profit prison company, GEO Group, Inc.

How could GEO, or any corporation, justify making people live in such deplorable conditions? Because it’s cheaper, according to the inmates’ rights group Partnership for Safety and Justice in Portland, Oregon. In an msnbc.com article entitled "Suicide Reveals Squalid Prison Conditions," the organization’s program director, Caylor Rolling stated, “they cut corners because the bottom line is making money.”

Papers, Please

Another way for-profit prisons make millions of dollars is by detaining immigrants. The  Department of Homeland Security pays local, county and state prisons up to $200 per person per day to house “apprehended aliens,” reports The Huffington Post. Singling out another Los Angeles County horror show, HuffPost’s Gabriel Lerner says California’s prisons in particular “benefit from the largesse of the federal government and vie for a piece” of this profitable pie. He cited a detention center in Lancaster, run by L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca, currently under federal investigation for prisoner abuse throughout the system, where immigrants rounded up in raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) were held for more than two years instead of the customary few days. According to a group of Latino filmmakers and “instigators” called Cuéntame (meaning both “count me” and “tell me your story,”) it doesn’t even matter whether these immigrants are documented or undocumented, “as long as they fill the detention facilities for days, months or even years.”

In the old days of publicly run prisons, it paid to let a prisoner go when his time was up or his rights were about to be violated. Not only was it the right thing to do, it saved the public money. And therein lies the rub.

In voters’ minds, the chief attraction of private, for-profit prisons is that they’re thought to save taxpayer dollars. Not so. In fact, just as health-care costs ballooned when corporations got in the game and began charging fifteen dollars per box of tissues -- as if a patient in a hospital bed were raiding the mini-bar in a luxe hotel rather than receiving medical care -- so have prison costs increased by virtue of the profit incentive of private-prison corporations. And where do their profits come from? Some come through the newly-legalized exploitation of the prisoners themselves, but the bulk come from you, the taxpayer. When prisoners, a public commodity, are managed by a private institution, the public pays. We are not creating savings. We are creating more prisoners and, these days, turning incarcerated human beings into corporate assets. Why would a private prison want to see a prisoner released if with him goes a piece of their income?

To find the really heavy hitters in the game of jailing undocumented immigrants for fun and profit, we must go to Arizona, where Republican State Senator Russell Pearce teamed up with ALEC and another for-profit prison company, Correction Corps of America (CCA), to create Senate Bill 1070, Arizona’s notorious “Papers, Please” anti-immigrant bill. Courtesy of SB 1070, local detention facilities rake in $200 per inmate per day ($6,000 a month, or $72,000 a year). According to “Immigrants for Sale,” Cuéntame’s shattering exposé, “these private prisons have spent over $20 million lobbying state legislators to make sure they get state anti-immigrant laws approved,” thus securing an endless supply of immigrant inmates. Replicated in Utah, Florida, Ohio, Tennessee and Iowa, ALEC and CCA have built themselves a “perfect money machine.”

Corporate Corrections Companies

Meet some of the players in the new, for-profit prison industry. Correction Corps of America (CCA), headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, touts itself as “America’s Leader in Partnership Corrections.” CCA designs, builds, manages and operates correctional facilities and detention centers for the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the U.S. Marshall Service, a couple dozen states, and nearly a dozen counties across the USA. CCA pocketed $2.9 billion in 2010.

Management Training Corporation (MTC), headquartered in Centerville, Utah, with branches in Texas, Georgia, and Washington, D.C., operates twenty correctional facilities in Arizona, California, Florida, Idaho, New Mexico, Ohio and Texas. They have the capacity to “secure and train 25,310 offenders and detainees at federal and state correctional facilities across the United States.”

Formerly known as Wackenhut Corrections,  GEO Group, Inc., of Boca Raton, Florida, manages and/or owns 116 correctional, detention and residential treatment facilities, boasting some 80,000 beds. GEO ran the Texas prison where the previously mentioned suicide took place. Among the many services GEO provides are Secure Prisoner Escort and Secure Detainee Transportation. Since its inception in 2008, GEO has transported over 200,000 prisoners and detainees by land and air.

Among the three of them, these for-profit prison companies own over two hundred facilities with 150,000 bed-spaces, cranking out a tidy five billion dollars a year in profit.

A perfect money machine, indeed -- but only if the system keeps them supplied with prisoners. And how does it do that, besides detaining defenseless immigrants? By feeding more and more marijuana and medical-marijuana users into their giant corporate maw.

War on (Wonder) Drugs

It’s worth repeating here that cannabis was only outlawed in the first place as an accommodation to corporate interests. There was no moral imperative to make it illegal, nor is there one today. It doesn’t kill people, the way alcohol and tobacco do. According to Lester Grinspoon, M.D., Associate Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, who has studied it extensively, cannabis is safer than aspirin! To quote him directly, “Compared to aspirin, which people are free to purchase and use without the advice or prescription of a physician, cannabis is much safer: there are well over 1000 deaths annually from aspirin in this country alone, whereas there has never been a death anywhere from marijuana.” He went on to say that “it will eventually be hailed as a ‘wonder drug’ just as penicillin was in the 1940s.”

Yet the practice of jailing people for growing, transporting, buying, selling or possessing marijuana, and locking them up for longer and longer periods of time, continues. In Louisiana this year, 35-year-old Cornell Hood II was sentenced to prison for life for having been caught four times for possession and/or distribution of a substance more innocent than aspirin and with fewer side effects than any pharmaceutical painkiller on the market. In Oklahoma, Patricia Spottedcrow, whose case we examine in an upcoming post, was sentenced to prison for ten years for having sold $31 worth of marijuana. Ten years. Second degree felony assault, in which a person bludgeons another person with a deadly weapon, causing severe bodily injury, carries five years. Yet you can sell a few “dime bags” of weed and get locked up for a decade, even when you have no prior arrests and four young children at home depending on you.

Just as the for-profit health-care industry relies on sick people for profits, and thus has an interest in keeping them sick, the for-profit prison industry relies on prisoners for profits, and thus has an interest in keeping them incarcerated. And though a recent Gallup poll  shows that fully fifty percent of Americans favor legalizing marijuana and another seventy percent favor allowing doctors to prescribe it, the fight will really heat up when all those who profit from the War on Drugs mobilize their efforts against legalization.

 

Let me ask you one question

Is your money that good

Will it buy you forgiveness

Do you think that it could

I think you will find

When your death takes its toll

All the money you made

Will never buy back your soul

~ Bob Dylan, “Masters of War”

 

No Defense for Grumbine and Byron

Meanwhile, back in Long Beach, California, Judge Charles D. Sheldon on September 22, 2011, denied Joe Grumbine and his former partner Joe Byron an affirmative (medical marijuana) defense against the felony charges they face for operating two legally compliant medical marijuana collectives. Consequently, the jury who decides their fate will not hear a single word about their activities in providing medical marijuana to patients with a legitimate prescription. The two Joes will be presented as ordinary street-level drug pushers. In a political climate where state and federal law enforcement agencies are targeting dispensaries and their landlords in an apparent effort to wipe out medical marijuana dispensaries entirely, this is very bad news for the Joes. If convicted, each will face at least seven years in state prison.

At a pre-trial hearing on October 12, Judge Sheldon asked for a list of defense witnesses. Attorney Chris Glew, representing Joe Grumbine, told the judge that, because his client had been deprived of a defense, he had no witnesses. Incredulous, the judge repeated his request. Glew repeated the same answer. Commenting that he’d set aside time for a month-long trial, Judge Sheldon expressed reluctance to forfeit taxpayer dollars on a trial that would be considerably shorter than he’d expected. “We didn’t accomplish very much today,” he groused, and continued the hearing until November 2.

Citizen Outrage Grows

Outraged over “juror abuse,” a growing coalition of medical marijuana patients and advocates gathered outside the courthouse to protest the judge’s ruling. They claim that by denying the Joes an affirmative defense, Judge Sheldon is denying the jury the ability to return a fair verdict based on the facts. “A juror can not take back a guilty verdict,” said one of the protesters, citing the recent execution of Troy Davis in Texas. In similar cases across the country, countless jurors are forced to live with the pain of having returned guilty verdicts based on insufficient or false evidence. Along with the defendant, the juror pays the price for this abuse of judicial authority.

 

How can the life of such a man

Be in the palm of some fool's hand?

To see him obviously framed

Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land

Where justice is a game

 ~ Bob Dylan, “Hurricane”

------------------

The next court date is set for Wednesday, November 2, 2011, at the Long Beach Courthouse. There will be a rally outside the courthouse at 8:00 AM. Court Support meets at 8:30 AM in Room 508. The trial begins on November 28.

Those wishing to join the rallies, participate in court support, or donate to Grumbine’s and Byron’s legal defense can do so at The Human Solution or phone 951-436-6312 for additional details.

Edited by Ellen Shahan for United States v Marijuana, via TrineDay Publishing Facebook

Snow on the Pumpkin

Some hungry squirrels attacked my neighbor's pumpkins.



Maybe they should have had a scarecrow to keep them away.



The Northampton Stop&Shop sells pre-painted pumpkins, but that feels like a form of creative laziness.



Happy Halloween, I guess.



The Pioneer Valley is known worldwide as one of America's most beautiful places. Unfortunately it comes with a few downsides, such as utterly corrupt politics and winters that come too early and springs that arrive too late. Here is the weather as I left UMass last night.



Of course it's nothing to the Old Chapel, which has seen the snowfalls of three centuries.



By morning the snow had stopped and this was how things looked by the babbling brook near my house.



Here's a little video I made while attempting to traverse the woodland way into downtown Northampton.



Finally I arrived downtown, where a bouquet of fallen branches surrounded a snow-faced Calvin Coolidge.



The buses were running as usual and so I soon arrived in Amherst, where the snowstorm perhaps caused this witch to crash into a UMass frathouse.



A menacing mouth greeted the customers of The Black Sheep, or would have if it was open.



A power outage meant that everything was closed, except of course for the store that never closes for any reason whatsoever.



No power meant the cash register didn't work, but if you could pay in cash with exact change it was business as usual.



In a world in which there is so little you can depend on, it is nice to know that on every single day since 1914 you can always count on Hastings.

Monday Matticchio



Sunday Safari - Haunted House



Theatre poster by Stasys Eidrigevicius, 1990

Willibald KrainGerüchte (Rumour) from Krieg, 1916

Illustration by Alberto Martini for The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

Liz MamontNursery



Francesco BalsamoGruppo di gufi in un interno

Pia Valentinis, illustration for Poe's The murders in the Rue Morgue 

Pierre Roy, Danger on the Stairs, 1927, thanks to Weimar


Jaroslav Serych, illustration for Tales of the Uncanny, 1976, and
John Buckland Wright, illustration for Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum1932, 
thanks to 50 Watts