I went to Attica today for my prisoners' rights class. It was my first time ever going to a prison. One of the most memorable moments of the tour happened when we were going through the kitchen and the smell of the food almost made me vomit. All the meals are made in one facility, flash frozen, and delivered to all the prisons state-wide to be thawed and served. They used to have farms nearby the facility that would provide the food for the prison, but they closed them down to switch to the way they do it now. It costs $2.50 to feed each prisoner per day.

It was also apparent that every guard that I saw was a white male, and a large population of the prisoners were black (there are no female prisoners in Attica). There is tear gas in the ceilings of the mess hall so they can clear out the room quickly if necessary, and you can be keep locked (kept in your cell for 23 hours a day) if you sit or step on the equipment in the metal yard, or if you touch the barber's tools. The highest paying job is in the metal yard at $40 every two weeks. Your also not allowed to talk in the corridors. No one seemed to talk at all while we were there, other than the guards. Some of the guards that hold the keys are locked within cells themselves so that no one can gain access to them. The prisoners are not allowed access to the internet or computers at all.

The officer giving the tour also said that the higher the education level of the inmate, the less likely he is to come back. When I asked if they had college correspondence courses, I was told that there is a small amount available. There used to be more available, but Federal and State laws were passed to preclude felons from obtaining financial aid. I asked what the thinking behind that was, considering the effect of education on recidivism rates, and the guard responded that taxpayers don't want to have to pay for prisoners to get a college education, seeing as it already costs taxpayers $35,000 per year, per prisoner. This argument didn't really make sense to me considering that you'd be paying more in the long-term, and I indicated as much, but he was pretty blustery about the point and just mentioned taxpayers again.

At the end of our tour, we were able to talk to one of the prisoners. I didn't quite get his full name, so I won't attempt it now. He was a really tall guy. He looked like an NBA player; he actually used to play basketball in high school. He was 31 and has been locked up for 12 years. He's serving a sentence of 25 to life for second degree murder. As mentioned, he was playing basketball in high school and had a chance to get a scholarship, but he fell in with the wrong crowd, dropped out in his last year, got involved with the wrong stuff, and ended up killing someone. He didn't know they were dead right away, so it sounds like something that was unintentional. Even though he turned himself in, after being on the run, he was still given the maximum sentence, despite not having a prior record. This guy seemed like a good guy to me, and it broke my heart to hear his story. He has an 11 year old daughter who he tries to support while in prison, and he's taken responsibility for his life choices. I know that what he did was wrong...and this is true of most prisoners...but at the same time I can also recognize how easy it is to mess up. All it takes is that one wrong decision that you can't take back.

I read a case where an individual was sentenced to time in a "Special Housing Unit" for keeping stamps, an atlas, and a used ink cartridge in the NAACP office that he was responsible for at Sing Sing. He was also "guilty" of composing a letter to a religious organization, in which he requested to pay for religious materials, to distribute to the general population, with stamps or have someone else (on the outside) send a check, since the inmates did not have any access to cash.

This is particularly disturbing to me because this is an obvious abuse of whatever these rules were set up for, yet the District Court reviewing his petition felt no need to do anything whatsoever. I understand that courts can only adjudicate the issues that are presented before them, although that doesn't stop some of them (see Ashcroft v. Iqbal), but sometimes you just have to wonder what the heck is going on. I mean come on already...it's one thing to write up prisoners for illegal behavior, but stamps and an ink cartridge? Really?! This is even more amazing to me considering all of the illegal activities that do take place in prisons and go overlooked and unpunished.

I heard someone say the other day that sometimes when you try to fight "monsters" you can become one yourself. I think we fall into this behavior much more than many of us are willing to admit. But, as in the words of Lavar,"you don't have to take my word for it." See for yourself. The citation is Joseph v. Fischer, 2009 WL 3321011 (S.D.N.Y. 2009).

I saw on Facebook today that a girl I know is in jail. She developed a drug problem a few years ago, so I wasn't exactly surprised to hear the news, but I'm deeply saddened by it. I used to spend a lot of time with this girl, and, while she did have her issues, I never thought that she would end up in the position she was in now. At one point, she was starting to get on her feet and then she met the wrong guy and one thing led to another. This makes me so upset because there are so many women out there who destroy themselves for the men that they are with, and, as the title implies, it's just not worth it! Women, please wake up and take care of yourselves and realize your own self-worth.

I just finished reading Macbeth for the first time today (no judgment please). The most striking part of the play for me, as well as many other people, is the speech at the end where he says, “[life] is a tale /Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury/ Signifying nothing.” Act 5, Scene 5, lines 26-28. I think this part of the play is so profound because it makes one wonder whether this is true. How many times have we all wondered what our purpose is in this life? However, what would our purpose have to be to make it (life) worth something? Is Macbeth simply saying this because he realizes how empty his life has become after selling his soul for power? I’m not sure. I’m moving on to King Lear, but first I’m going to buy some office supplies.

I had lunch with my Dad at a casino in Queens, New York yesterday, and, as usual, I found the sight to be particularly disturbing. The minute I walked in I was bombarded by an obnoxious assortment of sounds and lights including the many slot machines and the radio on in the background. To top it all off they have big banner that puts out helpful messages about how to gain more points on your rewards card and tales of jackpots that have been won. Nausea started to settle in shortly afterward. There were tons of senior citizens, some of them with oxygen tanks, sitting contently at their machines despite all the noise surrounding them. It made me feel like I was in the Matrix or some similar such apocalyptic tale. I could envision us all slowly being taken over until, like a scene in Wall-E, we all zoom around on little machines with a huge soda in one hand while watching television, and we lose the ability to walk as the result of gross obesity and muscular atrophy. I find it especially scary because I can see how easily it can happen judging by my own behavior. I have refused to purchase cable in the past because I realize that if I did have cable, I would do nothing but watch television, but the ease of watching television via my Netflix app on my IPhone has presented another danger. It’s so easy to lie in bed, or wherever, and watch shows that I’ve really taken to. After my episode at the casino, I thought about it and realized that I have watched 129 episodes of Bones and 39 episodes of Drop Dead Diva within the past couple of months. While, I do really love watching these shows, I must acknowledge that within that time I have spent approximately 5.25 days of my life watching television, and that’s not including any other television time or movies that I may have watched. This is extremely disturbing to me considering that today there are things such as GMO’s, meat treated with ammonia served in school lunches, hydro-fracking, and other such things that are happening without objection (at least not by the government). Not to mention, it is nearly impossible to figure out what is going on in local politics. Sure, I could try to dig out what is happening on my own, but why is it that I can find out that Snookie from the Jersey Shore is pregnant by just standing in line at the grocery store, but to find out who my local politicians are and what they’re up to, I practically have to become a private eye? Why can’t I stand in line at the grocery store and learn about some family who has lost access to clean water in Pennsylvania, or about how the Supreme Court effectively overruled Brown v. Board of Education with its ruling in Parents Involved v. Seattle? It seems a little ludicrous, and I do not believe this is a coincidence. This whole episode has made me think of a bumper sticker that someone stuck on one of the security mirrors at school that says “Do Not Blindly Follow.” So, I implore everyone, regardless of your party affiliation or personal beliefs, please do not blindly follow.