Devil's Advocate

Opposite View (of yesterday's post, below this one)
for the sake of argh!ument..

1. Let 'em fry in hell. Don't give them anything. Treat them like terrorists. Torture is sometimes, or rather often, in fact, merited. Karma is a bitch. Interrupt their sleep. Make the food shitty. Bang on the walls all the time. Deny access to legal advice, music, books. Ensure they never want to come back. Let the rotten bastards rot. They deserve monsters. Beatings are required for discipline and order. Rape and violence are the necessary deterrent component of any effective criminal justice system.
2. Jails and prisons should be centers of pain and suffering, not education, training, and learning. If we are to have a civilized society, we need to mercilessly punish transgression, and make incarceration cheaper, so as to fund greater priorities, such a education (for those that obey the rules, and don't break the law).
3. The death penalty is the human condition. We are all condemned. But “the wages of sin is death” says the good book. Criminals should die earlier.
4. prisoners should be made an example of. They should be trained to fight, and put on display in gladiatorial combat, where the losers are injured and killed, in full view of a spiteful public.
5. Incarceration should be a boring, mind-numbing, soul-killing protracted period of time, staring at the walls, contemplating one's evil past and sinful nature, and longing for freedom (not an exciting, stimulating, enjoyable place where friends congregate in communities/gangs).
6. They say America has the highest incarceration rate in the world, but I say More people should be locked up, because human nature is wicked, and we are all deserving because of original sin.
7. Make sure to victimize prisoners to the same, or greater, extent that they victimized society. That's what justice is: State's revenge.
8. Racist gangs are a necessary and welcome component of prison life, as they make life adversarial, like a game, which is necessary for the drama and excitement of a life well-lived, in which everyone is for themselves, anyway. Gangs are an expression of community, and foster friendships and “family.” They are natural and healthy, like sports fan communities, or service in the military, as an expression of nationalist identity and pride.
9. Rape should be tolerated, because only a small fraction of society is naturally homosexual, and homosex is the only outlet for sexual tension and frustration for the confined. Rape is an initiation into the joys of homosexual intercourse, and powerplay is part of the thrill.
10. Capital punishment should be expanded to include crimes of any and all severity or lack thereof. If littering were a capital offense, the streets would stay clean. States already have the power to murder, by declaring war, or allowing abortion, or selling mousetraps, and human life has little value, in a world headed for universal oblivion, and which deserves to die.
11. Prison should be a place of unremitting anger, hatred, and rage. A place of torments. They have it coming, and deserve every bit of discomfort, misery, pain, and suffering. Muahahaha! Let the hellish retribution commence!

New Sheriff In Town

Dear Sheriff Vicki Hennessy!

1. the ideal justice system
   regret, forgiveness, resolve to be good/not commit further crime, release
   “go forth and sin no more”
   (is justice the same as revenge? Is there not already a universal (extrajudicial) law of karma?)
2. incarceration as punishment, depriving of freedom, compounds the original crime:
   negative for negative, eye for an eye, leaves the “whole world blind”.
   Suffering must always and everywhere be lessened and ameliorated. Joy must be sought.
   Kindness must guide our response to evil and crime, not merciless or ruthless vengeance.
   The “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” should be borne with equanimity.
3. rewards and punishments, carrots and sticks, inducements, intelligent use of the principles of psychology, pleasure and pain, comfort and discomfort, heaven and hell, bliss and torture, love and hate, joy and depression, health and sickness, hope and despair, security and threat, all factor into justice and rehabilitation. Happiness Psychology should be put into practice in jails and prisons, as in the rest of society, and around the world.
4. Books, buddhism, meditation, yoga, aikido, and fitness are some of the things that make my life better, and which I think ought be made available and prevalent in incarcerated environments. Vegetarianism should be an option. The amount of suffering in factory farms is at least as big a problem as human suffering.
5. Gangs, racism, violence, rape, and drugs should not be a part of any prisoner's daily life and reality. Good food and medications, however, can make life better and enjoyable. A prisoner getting aids, a type of death sentence, should not be a possibility.
6. When I was in Sacramento County Jail, the ventilation and 2-way speaker system were located in the same place. Prisoners put damp toilet paper over the vent, so as not to be heard, which results in stuffy cells, and even difficulty breathing.
7. Prisoners can be useful members of society, even live happy and productive lives, doing such activities as fighting fires, picking up trash, reading and writing books, recording audio-books (for the blind, as well as commuters), earning degrees, and even doing science. Scaring people straight, of course, is valuable (although, preferably, the horror-stories should be lies).
8. Prison should not be “gladiator school”. But fitness and self-defense, the teaching and learning of martial arts, can be empowering, if paired with emphasis on a peaceful philosophy, as does Aikido.
9. I think prisoners should have access to a large and diverse library, both digitally as well as “portable reading devices” (bound books!). The bay area community, in my view, should be allowed to donate books to those locked up. Best-sellers, award-winners, books by other prisoners, and recommended reading (such as from lists like the “1001 books you must read before you die”) could all be a part of a body of (approved) literature. If books are restricted to tablets, they could be adjustable in size (big-print, for less eye-strain), such as my wikipedia app has on my ipad mini. Also, reference books like new languages, dictionary/thesaurus, encyclopedias, the bible, etc. In my view, all books are equally holy. A yoga position guide!

Persimmon-picking

Me, at Mission San Jose (in Fremont), helping the nuns with their garden (with my beard!)

prr simmons said the Cat-holic!
(not to be confused with pomegranates!)
I ate a sweet, crispy one, and an even sweeter mushy one on Friday (for the first times)
_____
other christian-linguistic thoughts:
Painting fingernails is evil!
sinner! she-devil! satan-worshipper! antichrist! demon-spawn!
what, what, what? you say?

get it- it (subliminally/on another level) elicits the crucifixion:
linguistic deconstructionism:
paint: pain/t
pain.
T as a cross.

nails:
fingernails: (crux-affix =crucifix) (nine inch nails, for example)(to get "nailed")
the 3 nails that crucified Jesus.

Did Jesus the carpenter use nails?  were fingernails called nails in Aramaic, too? Does ham have any cryptic relation to a hammer?  nailing pigs? fuck the police? pork slaughter?

get your "fix" from the "passion" (sex, drugs, and rocknroll!)
weekly mass...weak male ass? mm, ass. (bacon? weak donkey?)
allright, not everything makes sense.  scents. cents.
all write?

seriously, though, it's weird that painting nails has 3 embedded references, no?
one has no relation at all to the other!
(except maybe accidentally hammering your thumb)