Prisons

Prisons: I read the California Gov’s wife is trying to follow the First Lady’s example and plant a garden at the state capital. That’s good and I applaud both efforts. I would submit that allowing prisoners to have gardens or even a tomato plant in their cell would also be a step forward. Contrary to what the movies show and what people may think, prisons in California rarely grow their own food. Oh, other is one dairy and a chicken farm, but that’s only two prisons out of 34! Most of the time we spend locked up in our tiny cells. Do you know that inmates don’t even cut the grass on the prison yard? Yup, a big rider mower comes in and does it. That’s crazy! Here is all this “Free” labor just sitting, or laying, around and it’s not being used. The problem is the staff is so conditioned to having us locked down that they don’t ever want us to be out. I watched a CO (correctional officer) sit at the buildings central podium, while we were locked down, and read a magazine-for over an hour. And that CO is making about $60-$80K per year! Look, it’s just all too common for California inmates to be locked down for even the slightest reason. And due to the 180% overcrowding there are very few jobs. So most inmates just do nothing. That’s why simply letting some inmates out of their cells to tend gardens would be a very positive thing. Yes, this is my opinion and it has not been empirically tested but the way I see it, learning how to live when free can’t be learned living in a cage. That cage needs to be opened so the prisoners can learn how to build things and to develop socially. It’s just so easy to sit in my cell and start hating. After a very short time of only having my cellie to talk to, I can get very hate filled. But I try to channel those thoughts into positive and productive things. Can you picture a 20 year old gang member with little or no education being locked up with nothing to do. Can people really believe that young man or woman will be better off when he/she paroles? Common sense would tell any rational person that NO! of course that young person is going to be much more fucked up. That’s why there are so many parole violations-well, that’s one of the reasons. I’ll go into parole later. Give the prisoner a chance to self-rehabilitate. Allow gardens and more books. One very positive thing is the joint college program going on. An inmate can earn an AA degree, but they have to buy all the books. It’s a step in the right direction. So to Gov. Schwarzenegger and his wife, I say: Why don’t you come and plant some gardens in the prisons. You never know how those seeds will grow and maybe, just maybe, some very positive things may sprout. Politics- As most of America has, I just sat back stunned at the losses in the banks and brokerages. I’m not an economist so I had no idea what happened or what was the right course for the fed gov’t to take. As we all have now learned, TARP was and is a fucking disaster. With no real oversight it was a free for all at taxpayer expense. And as far as I can see, nothing happened. Toxic assets removed and credit would not budge. Now with the new bailout, the market seems to like it and there appears to be more credit. So my question is, did the market self correct or has the TARP and stimulus plan corrected the markets? Did TARP & President Obama’s stimulus quicken the correction? I don’t know. And I have a feeling that no one else really knows. Just a thought. Veritas 5509